IPL 2024: Marcus Stoinis guides LSG to third spot, MI’s playoffs hope all but over

After restricting Mumbai Indians to paltry 144, Lucknow Super Giants huffed and puffed to victory in a rather dull match of the IPL 2024 so far.

Marcus Stoinis was the star of the day as his all-round performance of 62 with the bat and 1 for 19 with the ball helped LSG register a crucial four-wicket win over MI at the Ekana Cricket Stadium, here on Tuesday.

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.

LSG moved to the third spot in the IPL 2024 points table, leapfrogging CSK while MI are ninth in points table with just 3 wins in 10 matches.

Even if MI win their remaining 4 matches, they might not be able to reach the playoffs.

Earlier, Nehal Wadhera’s 46 and Tim David’s late fire of 35 propelled Mumbai Indians to 144/7.

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.

Five boundaries in eight overs and Kishan trying to go for more was out caught for 32 off 36. Ravi Bishnoi, nominally a leg spinner, took out another left-hander with his googly. Nehal Wadhera and Ishan Kishan added run-up ball 53 for the fifth wicket.

In the midst of a difficult time for Mumbai, Nehal Wadhera was leading Mumbai forward. He finished on 46 off 41. It was the kind of innings no batter wanted to play in T20s. Much of his acceleration was the result of him taking on Mayank. Their head-to-head was 21 off 12 with two fours and two sixes.

Mayank left the field due to injury with the figure of 1 for 31 in 3.1 overs. However, the nature of the injury is still unknown.

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.