In the 63rd game of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023, Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) beat Mumbai Indians (MI) by five runs at the Bharat Ratna Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Cricket Stadium in Lucknow. With this crucial victory, LSG secured the third place with 15 points.
MI captain Rohit Sharma won the toss and elected to bowl first on a typical Lucknow deck which has not been batting friendly one. The visitors also took that advantage, as they struck three wickets in the powerplay, but an explosive innings from Marcus Stoinis and a handy knock from LSG skipper Krunal Pandya cruised the Lucknow-based team to reach to an above par total of 177/3 in their 20 overs.
While chasing, the Mumbai-based team came up with a positive intent, as both the openers Ishan Kishan (59) and Rohit (37) started to hammer down the bowlers, and build a strong opening partnership of 90 runs, but the young leg spinner, Ravi Bishnoi drew the first blood for the home side as he got Mumbai’s skipper in the tenth over. Soon after the first wicket, the Super Giants started to claim wickets in quick succession, which had riled up the required run rate, even the in-form Suryakumar Yadav (7) was not able to take MI home, which was one game-changing moment in this encounter. He was dismissed by young Yash Thakur in the 15th over. Although, Tim David (32)* tried to take his side across the line, but the final over delivered by the left arm pacer, Mohsin Khan did not concede 11 runs in the last over, as the five-time champions fell short by five runs.
With the ball for LSG, Bishnoi and Yash Thakur claimed two wickets each, whereas Mohsin Khan got one wicket.
In the first innings, the Lucknow-based team had a terrible start, as the opener Deepak Hooda (5) and Prerak Mankad got out on duck by Jason Behrendorff in the third over, and Quinton de Kock (16) also got dismissed in the seventh over by Piyush Chawla. But a vital partnership of 82 runs between Krunal (49) and Stoinis (89)* had changed the course of the home side’s innings. The Australian all rounder was the real architect in this innings, where had steamrolled the MI bowlers, especially Chris Jordan, where he scored 24 runs in that over, which had two sixes and three fours. The Perth-based player helped his side to score a formidable total on the board.
For MI, Behrendorff and Chawla were the wicket takers, as both of them grabbed two and one wicket respectively.
Marcus Stoinis was adjudged Player of the Match for his explosive innings of 89 runs which had four fours and eight sixes.
Scorecard:
Lucknow Super Giants: 177/3, Overs 20, Marcus Stoinis 89*, Jason Behrendorff 2/30
Mumbai Indians: 172/5, Overs 20, Ishan Kishan 59, Ravi Bishnoi 2/26