CHENNAI: Half-century from Marcus Stoinis (58) and late blitz from Nicholas Pooran (32 n.o) helped Lucknow Super Giants post 163/5 against Gujarat Titans in Lucknow on Sunday.
Opting to bat first, LSG were off to a shocking start. Umesh Yadav rushed Quinton de Kock with a sharp bouncer and the South African was back in the pavilion. In his next over, he struck again, and this time it was the wicket of Devdutt Padikkal. Umesh delivered a back of length delivery in the channel, the ball shaped away with the angle and took the outside edge. Soon, captain Rahul found himself doing the rescue act along with Stoinis.
Rahul turned the fortunes around with consecutive boundaries off Spencer Johnson in the fourth over. His first an off-drive and then came a slice through point before Stoinis finished the over with a punch down the ground for four.
Umesh, meanwhile, kept it tidy at the other end, and Shubman Gill brought back Rashid Khan to complete the powerplay. The veteran spinner did his job to perfection, conceding just four runs as LSG finished the first six overs with 47/2.
Soon, Noor Ahmed started from the other end. And all of a sudden, Rashid and Noor were applying the brakes in the run rate. With the boundaries not coming fluently Lucknow strutted their way to 74/2 at the halfway mark. At that point, Rahul was batting on 28 from 25 balls while Stoinis was on 29 from 24.
Stoinis tried to accelerate, pulling Mohit Sharma to the ropes, but he was cautious against Noor. The run-rate pressure eventually caught up as Rahul fell trying to take on Darshan Nalkande for 33 runs from 31 balls. Stoinis and Nicholas Pooran played out the next over from Noor, but the former took Nalkande to cleaners with a tonk into the stands. In doing so, Stoinis also brought up his half-century in 40 balls. He would hit one more six off Nalkande before getting out in the same over with a 43-ball 58.
Joined by Ayush Badoni, Pooran would keep things going with the former taking the aggressive route. Badoni smashed 20 off 11 balls before getting out to Rashid in the penultimate over. In the final over by Spencer, Super Giants managed only eight runs to finish with 163/5 in 20 overs. Pooran was unbeaten on 32 from 22 balls.