Marcus Stoinis' unbeaten 89 off 47 along with skipper Krunal Pandya's 49 off 42 powered Lucknow Super Giant (LSG) to 177/3 against Mumbai Indians (MI) in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023 at the Ekana Stadium, here on Tuesday.
LSG's move to promote Deepak Hooda did not pay off. Prerak Mankad and Quinton de Kock were dismissed cheaply as well and the hosts were tottering at 35/3. Krunal and Stoinis then got together and forged a solid recovery with an 82-run stand.
After Krunal Pandya retired himself in the 16th over, Stoinis took matters into his hands and unleashed shorts all around the park, taking 54 runs off the last 3 overs to provide a magnificent finish to LSG.
Batting first, LSH had a torrid start as Chris Jordan almost got Deepak Hooda to mistime his shot and the ball went high up in the air. Tim David ran behind towards deep extra cover to take the catch but the ball went through his hands and hit him on the chin.
Jason Behrendorff's double strike in the second over sent the opener Hooda and Prerak Mankad on two successive deliveries to reduce LSH to 12/2. With Quinton de Kock's couple of sixes and Krunal Pandya's boundary, LSG were 35/2 at the end of the Power-play.
Piyush came into the attack on the next over and picked up a wicket on the first ball of his spell. De Kock lunged forward and looked to push it away but the ball turned away and got the outside edge. Ishan Kishan took a sharp catch behind the stumps.
While the MI bowlers dominated the proceedings, Stoinis and Krunal steadied the innings as they were looking for twos and the odd boundaries.
The duo, then, launched the counter-attack with some lusty blows and LSG touched the 100-run mark in the 14th over. An over later, Stoinis freed his arms and hit it straight down the ground for a maximum.
Krunal Pandya was experiencing cramps while running and retired himself in the 16th over, falling one short of his half-century.
Madhwal trapped Stoinis lbw with a toe-crushing yorker but the batter was quick to review the decision. The Ball Tracking confirmed that the ball was missing the stumps and Stoinis survived a scare.
He made the best use of the reprieve and smoked it over the bowler's head for a maximum and brought up his fifty in fine fashion. A dot ball later, he lined up 4, 4, 6, 4 in the next four deliveries, taking 24 off the 18th over.
The Australian smashed two consecutive sixes against Behrendorff in the penultimate over. In the last over, Pooran swung it away behind backward square leg for a boundary. Stoinis gave fine finishing touch, lifting it high toward long-off for a maximum and Lucknow ended the innings with 177 with the loss of 3 wickets.
Brief scores:
Lucknow Super Giants 177/3 in 20 overs (Marcus Stoinis 89, Krunal Pandya 49; Jason Behrendorff 2-30) against Mumbai Indians.