Sachin Tendulkar got one final win over his good friend and fellow Indian legend Rahul Dravid.
Tendulkar's Mumbai Indians trumped Dravid and the Royals by 33 runs in a high-scoring and thoroughly entertaining Champions League T20 final at the Feroze Shah Kotla.
Tendulkar did not make much of an impression with the bat, and neither did Dravid in their final T20 games, as the Mumbai Indians picked up their second CLT20 title, just a few months after romping to the IPL crown, on the back of their star-filled batting lineup.
Asked to bat first, after Dravid won the toss, the Mumbai Indians pummelled the Royals bowlers into submission, ending their first innings on a massive 202 for six.
The Royals, on the back of a wonderful partnership between Sanju Samson (60) and Ajinkya Rahane (65), threatened for a while to topple the target, but it proved to be too much in the end as Dravid - one of the greatest the game has ever seen and will see -- walked away with his head held high into the sunset.
Dravid, in his last real competitive match, did not come up to open the innings for the Royals, with Ajinkya Rahane, instead joined, by Kusal Perera, who had been roped in as a replacement for the injured Brad Hodge, who it must be said was missed by the Royals.
Perera, however, did not last too long, running himself out in just the fourth ball of the innings, after hitting a couple of boundaries.
That brought in 18-year-old Sanju Samson, and quite an innings this special kid played under the pressure-filled atmosphere of a major final.
Samson does not smash the ball to all parts of the park, like his partner at the other end - Rahane -- he caresses it and caress he did much to the worry of the Mumbai Indians.
Both Samson and Rahane played some glorious cricketing shots, while keeping the run rate at around ten an over, and giving the Royals a real chance of getting to that massive target.
The young duo put on 109 in just 11.1 overs to keep the game very much alive as it went into the final stages.
The closer you get to the target with wickets in hand, the more it goes in the favour of the batting side, and the Royals were doing just that.
Samson, though, was finally dismissed in the 12th over, after 33 balls and 60 special runs, which included four fours and sixes each, with Shane Watson also not able to carry the game to the finish.
It was down to Rahane and Stuart Binny, but the former could not carry on as his brilliant innings of 65 (47b, 5x4, 2x6) came to an end with the Royals needing another 48 from the final 23 deliveries.
Harbhajan (four for 42), who picked up Rahane, turned the game in the 17th over, by also castling the dangerous Binny, and then dismissing Kevon Copper, as the Royals gallant reply looked like falling a little short.
Dravid came in and the crowd almost willed their icon to pull one more magical innings out of that unbelievable hat; but it wasn't to be as the Royals finished 33 runs short on 169.
The first innings was packed with slam-bang, thank you ma'am action as the likes of Dwayne Smith, Rohit Sharma and Glenn Maxwell went to town on the Rajasthan Royals bowlers.
Al the focus at the beginning of the innings, though was on Sachin Tendulkar, playing in his final T20 game, or any with coloured clothing.
Tendulkar took his time to get started, allowing Smith to do the tonking at the beginning of the innings. Mumbai were coasting along well, with the openers giving them a realm of a decent platform as Tendulkar also looked to get into his groove, after his 35 against Trinidad & Tobago last night.
A couple of boundaries off consecutive deliveries from Watson gave the Delhi crowd hope of seeing something special from their favourite player - the man they had come in to see the most.
However, as has been the case for much of this tournament, it proved to be a false dawn as Tendulkar, going for an extravagant shot, was castled by Watson, ending the noisy crowd into stunned silence.
The great man walked off the ground to a standing ovation, and after a lull as everyone contemplated the end of Tendulkar's T20 career, it was back down to business.
The Mumbai Indians sent in Ambati Rayudu at No.3, despite having the option of Maxwell or Dinesh Karthik, and it looked like a decent shout as Rayudu and Smith looked to set up a score for the final big push.
The duo put on 42 from seven overs, before that novice old man Pravin Tambe (two for 19) came to the fore for the umpteenth time in the tournament.
The leg-pinner disturbed the timber of Smith, first, before Rayudu also fell the same way as the Royals looked to hold things back.
However, that is a difficult thing to do when you have a Rohit Sharma in a mood to smash the ball out of the park.
The Mumbai Indians skipper lent into the Royals bowling with ease, smashing the bowlers all around the park, and that is despite facing just 14 balls in his innings.
Those 14 deliveries yielded 33 runs, and included three fours and a couple of sixes, with Maxwell also getting in on the act, after Kieron Pollard fell for a 10-ball 15.
Maxwell took over after Sharma went in the first ball of the 18th over scoring a peach of a 37 runs from 14 balls (4x4, 2x6) before Dinesh Karthik (13, 4b, 2x6) and Harbhajan Singh finished things off nicely to take them past 200.
The Mumbai Indians scored a massive 142 runs from the last ten overs, and that burst could be the difference between winning and losing in the end.
