Nicholas Pooran’s swashbuckling 29-ball 75 turned out to be the cornerstone of Lucknow Super Gaints’ 18-run victory over Mumbai Indians at Wankhede Stadium on Friday. For MI, Rohit Sharma, possibly playing in his final IPL game for the franchise, composed a quick-fire 68 and Naman Dhir (62 not out off 28 balls) landed the big shots in the final overs. But it wasn’t enough as they accumulated 196 in their allotted 20 overs.
Rohit’s willow sparkles
There have been enough speculations over whether the LSG game would be Rohit’s farewell match. If that is true, then the former MI captain gave a fitting farewell to all his fans with a rousing innings. Rohit, who has played for the franchise for more than 13 years and led them to five titles, started on a rather streaky note, with a boundary via a leading edge. However, he soon grew in confidence, smashing the likes of Naveen-ul-Haq, Mohsin Khan and Matt Henry for fours and sixes.
Even a brief spell of rain didn’t result in him losing his concentration. Eventually, he fell to Ravi Bishnoi. The one encouraging sign from Rohit’s innings was he seemed to rely more on timing rather than looking to muscle the ball.
Pooran’s pyrotechnics
At 69 for 3, after the 10th over, LSG were clearly struggling. Pooran then proceeded to play a volley of shots off Arjun Tendulkar, Anshul Kamboj and Dhir to lift LSG’s sagging spirits. The way he kept clearing his front leg to give the ball a thwack exemplified his Calypso flair. When Pooran was dismissed in the 17th over by N Thushara, he had already done enough damage. Ayush Badoni then provided the finishing touches with a breezy innings of 22.
The Rahul conundrum
What to make of KL Rahul’s knock? Yet again, he didn’t show the required intent in the Powerplay overs. At one point of time, he was on just 28 off 27 deliveries. Although he increased his strike-rate to some extent, he could only score 55 of 41 deliveries. Just like Rohit, there are rumours that Rahul could be on his way out of the LSG unit. Whatever may be the case, he didn’t help his cause with another of those sedate knocks.
Where did they end up on the table?
For the second time in the last three seasons, MI turned out to be the bottom-placed side. They could only win four matches out of 14. Meanwhile, despite winning seven matches, LSG had to settle for sixth place. Their chances to qualify for the playoffs were dented because of a poor net run rate, -0.667.