The 2013 Indian Premier League final was a day/night Twenty20 cricket match played between the Chennai Super Kings and the Mumbai Indians on 26 May 2013 at Eden Gardens, Kolkata to determine the winners of the 2013 Indian Premier League, the sixth annual season of the professional Twenty20 cricket tournament in India. Mumbai defeated Chennai by 23 runs, attributed to Kieron Pollard's unbeaten innings of 60 runs from 32 balls which earned him the man of the match award.
Mumbai won their first IPL title playing in their second IPL Final, after losing to Chennai in 2010. Chennai were playing their fifth IPL Final, attempting to win their third title. It was also the final match where Mumbai's Sachin Tendulkar was an IPL cricketer, although he did not participate in the match due to injury. He announced his retirement from the IPL at the conclusion of the match.
Road to the final
Heading into the tournament, as with the previous seasons, both the Chennai Super Kings and Mumbai Indians were considered to be amongst the favourites due to their past performances and squads. Chennai were the runners-up of 2012 and twice IPL champions before. Mumbai had made playoff-stage appearances in each of the past three years and were runners-up in 2010 when they lost to Chennai.
Group stage
Chennai and Mumbai were dominant throughout the group stage. At the end of the group stage, they were ranked first and second respectively and each had 11 wins from 16 matches. Apart from losing their first match, which was against Mumbai, and an upset against Pune Warriors India, Chennai started their season strong with consistent batting from Michael Hussey and Suresh Raina. Captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Ravindra Jadeja formed a strong middle order as they scored quickly late in their innings to help Chennai while chasing. Chennai's bowling attack continued to be considered their one weakness. While the inclusion of Dirk Nannes and Chris Morris, both purchased at this year's auction, produced a few successes, the best bowling performances came from Dwayne Bravo and Mohit Sharma. Sharma, an uncapped Indian player playing in his debut IPL season, took the most wickets in powerplays in the first half of the season. For most of the season's second half, Chennai held the top position on the points table with an IPL record-equalling seven-match winning streak. Hussey and Raina continued their prolific run-scoring. Hussey was frequently the season's highest run-scorer while Raina made his maiden IPL century and another score of 99. They, however, finished the group stage with three losses from five matches, including another against Mumbai.
Mumbai began the season with the new opening batting partnership of Sachin Tendulkar and Ricky Ponting, who was acquired in the auction and took on the captaincy. This partnership failed to produce runs and Ponting was benched after five matches. Instead, Mumbai's batting solely depended on Dinesh Karthik, Rohit Sharma and Kieron Pollard and they could only win three of their first six matches. Mumbai were at the middle of the points table halfway through the season. As the tournament progressed, they had a more consistent top order with Dwayne Smith replacing Ponting and an improved bowling attack that included Mitchell Johnson, in his first IPL season, Harbhajan Singh, Lasith Malinga and Pragyan Ojha. Sharma, who took over the captaincy from Ponting, continued his form while Karthik began to struggle. Pollard only made one more significant contribution when he scored 66 runs from 27 balls. Towards the end of the group stage, Tendulkar suffered a wrist injury. This did not hamper the team as his replacement, Aditya Tare, showed promise with a score of 59 runs in his first innings. Mumbai only lost two of their last ten matches, both due to batting collapses.
