LSG seems to have brought their USP back against MI at their Ekana Stadium, Lucknow. In the previous season, they restricted every team targets to below 140 and 130 to chase them down. Yet times, they even failed to chase such small targets. In IPL 2024, Ekana pitch supported big scores as well but this one brought back those memories.
LSG have won the toss and elected to field first. The pitch seemed to be on a slower side since the first over. MI lost Rohit Sharma(4) early and Suryakumar Yadav(10) also in the powerplay. Even Tilak Varma(7) struggled and Hardik Pandya(0) also fell in powerplay. At the end of 5.2 overs, MI have been reduced to 27/4.
Nehal Wadhera and Ishan Kishan(32) scrapped through trying to rebuild the innings. But Ishan fell at the wrong time and even Nehal(46) also fell before final surge. Tim David scored 35 runs from 18 balls to help MI score 144/7 after a lot of struggle. Naveen-ul-Haq(1/15), Mohsin Khan(2/36) bowled at their best while Mayank Yadav again struggled with fitness.
In the chase, LSG lost Arshin Kulkarni(0) in the first over. They did not Quinton de Kock and that did show in their batting. KL Rahul(28) and Marcus Stoinis have been forced to be watchful. It is Marcus Stoinis who kept building the innings despite difficult conditions. He scored 62 runs from 45 balls to put LSG in front of finish line.
Still, it looked difficult for LSG players to score the runs as Nuwan Thushara and Jasprit Bumrah did not let them. But Hardik Pandya’s penultimate over and luck favoured LSG in scrapping through the score. They scored 145/6 in 19.2 overs and won the match by 4 wickets. While their NRR did not improve they did enter 3rd place on table with 12 points behind KKR.