MUMBAI, India — Rising Pune Supergiant reached their first Indian Premier League final when they beat Mumbai Indians by 20 runs in the playoffs on Tuesday.
Supergiant finished second to Mumbai in the round-robin but beat Mumbai in both of their league matches.
Mumbai, a two-time champion, has one more chance to make the final, when it plays the winner of Wednesday's eliminator between defending champions Sunrisers Hyderabad and Kolkata Knight Riders on Friday.
Supergiant scored 162-4 then offspinner Washington Sundar triple strike undermined Mumbai's top order and restricted it to 142-9 on a slow Wankhede Stadium pitch.
"Three times we've beaten them now," Supergiant captain Steve Smith said.
"You really need to peak at the right time in tournaments like this. Washington's lengths were magnificent and it was great he did it on a big stage like this."
Mumbai captain Rohit Sharma believed they did well to keep Supergiant to 162 but said they produced their worst batting effort of the season.
"We knew the wicket is going to play slow, but we have played enough games here to understand the conditions," Rohit said.
Sundar twice struck in the last over of the batting powerplay when he got a lucky lbw decision against Rohit (1), and Ambati Rayudu (0) pulled straight to Smith at short midwicket.
Mumbai slipped to 41-3 then 51-4 in Sundar's last over when Kieron Pollard was also caught neatly by Smith. Sundar took 3-16.
Opening batsman Parthiv Patel top-scored with 52 off 40 balls before he holed out in the deep off seamer Shardul Thakur, 3-37, while desperately looking for big shots.
Earlier, Supergiant were pumped up by Mahendra Singh Dhoni's unbeaten 40 off 26 balls and Manoj Tiwary's 58 in their 73-run fourth-wicket stand off 44 balls. That included 41 runs off the last two overs, when they smashed Mitchell McClenaghan for 26 runs and Jasprit Bumrah for 15. Dhoni hit five sixes.
Tiwary also put on 80 runs with opening batsman Ajinkya Rahane (56 off 43 balls) after Supergiant lost the wickets of Rahul Tripathi (0) and Smith (1) in the first two overs. — AP
