Though they couldn't bat, couldn't field and conceded byes generously, MI finished with the biggest prize at franchise-level Twenty20



One tattoo on Malinga's forearm spoke louder than all his other elements of bling. "Destiny says it all", it proclaimed sagely. Harbhajan might have curtailed his long, rambling explanations, and just pointed at it.

There was little surrounding the Mumbai Indians' campaign that suggested they could go all the way. They came into the tournament with the lowest billing among the IPL sides, without their captain, icon and best batsman, and several other first-choice players. Their stand-in skipper was going through his worst season at the highest level, and had to deal with his own exclusion from the Indian side midway through the tournament.



And so it was, that though they couldn't bat, couldn't field and conceded byes generously, MI finished with the biggest prize at franchise-level Twenty20. Their triumph flies in the face of conventional Twenty20 logic; it came in a format made for batsmen, and where games are won and lost by fielding, without looking the part in either department. How do you explain that? Perhaps Malinga's tattoo was right. Destiny did say it all.