CHENNAI: Half-century from Marcus Stoinis (58) and fifer (5/30) from Yash Thakur helped Lucknow Super Giants beat Gujarat Titans by 33 runs on Sunday.
Chasing 164, Gujarat did get off to a good start with B Sai Sudharsan hitting the crucial boundaries. However, skipper Shubman Gill's poor run continued as he fell for 19 runs from 21 balls to Thakur. M Siddharth, once again, proved valuable in the powerplay, sending down three overs for just 20 runs.
Building on the pressure, Ravi Bishnoi took a stunning return catch to dismiss Kane Williamson and Krunal Pandya struck twice to remove Sai Sudharsan (31) and BR Sharath (2). With Krunal removing Darshan Nalkande shortly after, GT were all but out of the contest — 80/5 in 12.1 overs. From thereon, it was only a matter of time as Thakur ran through the lower order to dismiss GT for 130. The pacer finished with figures of 5/30 in 3.5 overs.
Opting to bat first, LSG lost Quinton de Kock early. Umesh Yadav rushed de Kock with a sharp bouncer and the South African was back in the pavilion. In his next over, he removed Devdutt Padikkal. Soon, captain KL 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. Umesh, meanwhile, kept it tidy at the other end, and Gill brought back Rashid Khan to complete the powerplay.
Once Noor Ahmed started from the other end, Rashid and he 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. The pressure eventually caught up as Rahul fell while trying to take on Nalkande for 33 runs from 31 balls.
Meanwhile, Stoinis 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. Ayush Badoni smashed 20 off 11 balls before getting out to Rashid. Nicholas Pooran (32 n.o) provided the late boost as LSG finished with 163/5.
Brief scores: LSG 163/5 in 20 ovs (Stoinis 58, Rahul 33, Pooran 32 n.o; Umesh 2/22) bt GT 130 all out in 18.5 ovs (Sai Sudharsan 31; Thakur 5/30).