Lucknow Super Giants 145 for 6 (Stoinis 62, Hardik 2-26). Mumbai Indians 144 for 7 (Wadhera 46, Mohsin 2-36) by four wickets
There is almost no correlation between Mohsin Khan’s amble to the crease and the ball he sends down. Sometimes, he is big on the batter. Sometimes you get an unexpected twist. He uses his height to good effect and must have incredible shoulder strength. It seems that’s where he gets all his speed, leading everyone astray. He produced a false shot about once every three deliveries.
Rohit Sharma spat a ball he saw as hitable straight into the hands of short cover. The MI batsman threw his head back in utter disappointment. He still thought that it should be past four. But instead he was gone for 4, on his birthday. Nehal Wadhera had wiped his front leg to become bigger. Except he was met with a hot yorker, dipping under his bat before he was ready for it and crashing into his stumps.
Someone who can close the order and give them two or three overs each game. Stoinis knows his limitations. He knows he doesn’t have much pace, but that worked for him when he bowled to Suryakumar Yadav. An attempt at a boundary at fine leg ended up as a feather over the keeper. It was brave from LSG, keeping Stoinis on in the second over, long after the swing on the new ball had disappeared, against the most dangerous batsmen in the world. But that was probably the plan – deny SKY the speed it wanted – and it worked.
They lost to Rohit and Suryakumar in consecutive overs. They lost Tilak Varma and Hardik Pandya in back-to-back balls. MI was a sinking ship after just 5.2 overs. They could only hit three boundaries in the powerplay, the fewest this season. It was a good situation for Ravi Bishnoi to come in and say the terms. He bowled four overs on the trot, giving away 28 runs and picking up the wicket of Ishan Kishan with a fine googly, deceiving the left-hander as he evaded a slog across the line and was caught at third. Wadhera tried his best from the other end, going from 9 in 15 to 13 in 20 and ending up with 46 in 41. Most of his runs came from Mayank (21 off 12, 2x4s, 2x6s)
A batting average of almost 40, a strike rate of over 150, four wickets in 12 overs bowled, LSG has a cheat code and his name is Stoinis. This run got into gear when he pulled Gerald Coetzee for a boundary in the third over. Until then the new ball was doing well and LSG was very focused on seeing the game over. Rahul dropped the anchor (5 off 13, before finishing with 28 off 22). He was looking for his partner to do this game and he did. Big time.
Stoinis came into the match with an average of 19 and a strike rate of 128 against spin in IPL 2024. But he got Piyush Chawla and Mohammad Nabi to his liking, taking a combined 29 off 16 balls and four four and six. . That ended up being the insurance needed because after his wicket fell, LSG needed 27 balls to get the remaining 30 runs, losing two more wickets.
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