Finance
Marcus Stoinis led the charge with 62 as the Lucknow Super Giants narrowly defeated a tenacious Mumbai Indians bowling lineup, winning by four wickets and moving up to third place on the standings.
Nehal Wadhera’s knock of 46, combined with Tim David’s late blitz in the last over, drove Mumbai Indians to a competitive total of 144/7 against Lucknow Super Giants. Mumbai suffered early difficulties, losing key players like Rohit Sharma, Suryakumar Yadav, Tilak Verma, and Hardik Pandya in the first six overs, but Ishan Kishan and Wadhera were able to stabilize their batting to some extent.
Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) won the toss and opted to bowl first against Hardik Pandya’s Mumbai Indians (MI) at the Bharat Ratna Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Cricket Stadium in Lucknow. LSG dropped Quinton de Kock from their lineup, while Mayank Yadav returned.
In the chase of below par score of 145 at the slow wicket, Nuwan Thushara landed an early strike, dismissing Arshin Kulkarni for the golden duck. KL Rahul dropped the anchor role as he was 5 off 13 after three overs and already set up to stay there till the end, giving up the responsibility of making a play to the other batters.
Thushara and Gerald Coetzee had given KL Rahul two freebies down leg side and he was unable to connect with either of them. But Coetzee was smoked for 15-runs in the second over courtesy of back-to-back boundaries from Stoinis.
LSG lost skipper Rahul on 28 to a wonderful catch by Mohammad Nabi off Hardik Pandya which pulled Mumbai back in the game as both added 58 off 40 deliveries for the second wicket.
Stoinis was looking good and Deepak Hooda was decent in the four balls he had faced. It was an uphill task for MI as they needed a few wickets to script a turn around on a wicket which looked slightly sluggish.
Stoinis was impressive with another fifty, but LSG stumbled toward the end, taking the game until the last over. The experience of Nicholas Pooran came in handy as the home team successfully went past the finish line with 4 balls to spare.
Lucknow came with a different bowling plan in the Powerplay overs against Mumbai, and it paid off well as Marcus Stoinis in his second over of the spell got rid of dangerous Suryakumar Yadav on the score of 10.
Before that Mohsin Khan dismissed skipper Rohit Sharma for four runs in the second over of the inning.
Tilak Varma got run out in the chaos of an lbw appeal by Ravi Bishnoi guiding the backward point, as he forgot about where the ball was. Then walked skipper Hardik Pandya in the crease. He got out for a first-ball duck. Mumbai were in serious trouble with 28 for 4 on the scoreboard in the powerplay.
Mayank Yadav, on return from injury bowled the seventh over of the innings and was a fairly long first over and got smoked for eight runs in the over. And once the field spread and LSG went to their spinners, it became harder to score boundaries for MI.
Kishan hit five boundaries in eight overs and was caught for 32 off 36 in an attempt to score more. Ravi Bishnoi, a notional leg spinner, dispatched another left-hander with his googly. Nehal Wadhera and Ishan Kishan shared 53 runs for the fifth wicket.
In the middle of a terrible time for Mumbai, Nehal Wadhera was pushing it forward. He finished with 46 off 41. It was the type of innings no batsman wanted to play in T20 cricket. Taking on Mayank resulted in a significant increase in his acceleration. Their head-to-head score was 21 off 12, including two fours and two sixes.
Mayank departed the field injured, having taken 1 for 31 in 3.1 overs. However, the the nature of the injury is still unknown.
The Hardik Pandya-led Mumbai Indians suffered their 6th defeat of the season against Delhi Capitals on Saturday in a close encounter in Delhi. They currently stand in ninth position in the points table with only three victories in nine matches.
The KL Rahul-led Lucknow Super Giants are in 5th position with five wins in nine games. They need one more victory and they will climb up to the second spot.
Brief score:
Mumbai Indians 144 for 7 in 20 overs (Nehal Wadhera 46, Tim David 35; Mohsin Khan 2-36, Naveen-ul-Haq 1-15) lost to Lucknow Super Giants 145 for 6 in 19.2 overs (Marcus Stoinis 62, KL Rahul 28; Hardik Pandya 2-28, Nuwan Thushara 1-30) by four wickets.
