Stoinis and bowling pack lift LSG to third spot

Lucknow Super Giants 145 for 6 (Stoinis 62, Hardik 2-26) beat Mumbai Indians 144 for 7 (Wadhera 46, Mohsin 2-36) by four wickets

Having lost more wickets (4) than they hit boundaries (3) in the powerplay, Mumbai Indians were always going to struggle. Four of the first six overs cost a run a ball or less. Two of the last four suffered the same fate. A total of 144 did not look like it would be enough and so it proved as Lucknow Super Giants secured victory with four wickets to spare and moved into third place on the points table. Really, the only thing that didn’t go according to plan for KL Rahul – well two things – was Mayank Yadav leaving the field early on the very night he returned from injury.

There is almost no relation between Mohsin Khan’s amble up to the crease and the ball that he sends down. At times, he gets big on the batter. Other times he gets swing that they aren’t expecting. He uses his height to great effect and must have incredible strength in his shoulder. It seems to be where he gets all his pace, which deceived pretty much everybody. He was producing a false shot roughly once every three deliveries.

Rohit Sharma spooned a ball that he saw as hittable straight into the hands of short cover. The MI batter threw his head back in utter disappointment. He was still thinking that should have gone for four. But instead he was the one gone for 4, on his birthday. Nehal Wadhera had cleared his front leg looking to go big. Except he was met with a searing yorker, dipping beneath his bat before he was ready for it and crashing into his stumps.

Marcus Stoinis has a hundred in this tournament, batting at No. 3. He also occasionally opens the bowling for LSG. Imagine what India would do to have a player like that in their T20 squad?

Someone who can bat up the order and give them two or three overs every game. Stoinis knows his limitations. He knows he doesn’t have a lot of pace, but that actually worked in his favour when was bowling to Suryakumar Yadav. The attempt to flick a boundary to fine leg ended up as a feather through to the keeper. It was brave of LSG, keeping Stoinis on for a second over, long after the swing from the new ball had disappeared, against one of the most dangerous batters in the world. But that was probably the plan – deny SKY the pace he likes – and it worked.

They lost Rohit and Suryakumar in back-to-back overs. They lost Tilak Varma and Hardik Pandya in back-to-back balls. MI were a sinking ship after just 5.2 overs. They could hit only three boundaries in the powerplay, the fewest this season. It was the perfect situation for Ravi Bishnoi to come in and dictate terms. He bowled four overs on the trot, giving away 28 runs and picking up Ishan Kishan’s wicket with a gorgeous googly, deceiving the left-hander as he went for a slog across the line and having him caught at short third. Wadhera tried his best from the other end, progressing from 9 off 15 to 13 off 20 to finally 46 off 41. Most of his runs came off Mayank (21 off 12, 2x4s, 2x6s)

Batting average almost 40, strike rate above 150, four wickets from 12 overs bowled, LSG have a cheat code and his name is Stoinis. This chase really got in gear when he pulled Gerald Coetzee for back-to-back boundaries in the third over. Until then the new ball was doing a fair bit and LSG’s focus was seeing that spell of play out. Rahul had dropped anchor (5 off 13, before finishing with 28 off 22). He was looking to his partner to make the play and he did. Big time.

Stoinis came into this game with an average of 19 and strike rate of 128 against spin in IPL 2024. But he found Piyush Chawla and Mohammad Nabi just to his liking, taking them for a combined 29 off just 16 balls with four fours and a six. That ended up as necessary insurance because after the fall of his wicket, LSG needed 27 balls to score the remaining 30 runs, losing two wickets as well.

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