DURBAN, May 14: Rajasthan Royals played like true champions on Thursday night to keep their IPL-2 semifinal hops alive with a penultimate-ball win over the Mumbai Indians on Thursday night.

Abhishek Nayar’s late blast after Sachin Tendulkar had set up the chase took their side agonisingly close to the victory target of 147.

Led spectacularly by their inspirational skipper Shane Warne, who battled through his hamstring injury to play in the match, the Royals squeezed past the Indians by two runs here.

Munaf Patel’s last over heroics negated the spectacular batting by Nayar, who took the Indians to the brink of victory, hammering 35 off 18 balls but it was not enough as the Indians were bowled out for 143 with one ball left.

It looked all but lost for the Indians when Tendulkar departed after a fine knock of 40 off 30 balls but the Mumbai all-rounder almost turned the match around in a couple of overs.

He swung boundaries through the leg-side off Munaf in the 18th over and then hammered a massive six over the covers off Johan Botha in the next over to swing the pendulum firmly in the favour of the Indians.

Paceman Munaf came on to bowl the final over with four runs required for victory and trapped Dhawal Kulkarni lbw for one and the run-outs of Chetanya Nanda and Lasith Malinga were enough to dash the Indians’ dreams.

Scores: Rajasthan Royals 145/7 in 20 overs (R. Quiney 51, R. Jadeja 42; S. Jayasuriya 2/3) bt Mumbai Indians 143 in 19.5 overs (S. Tendulkar 40, A. Nayar 35; S. Warne 3/24).