Rahul slams century again, MI on verge of elimination

LSG skipper’s 103*, a disciplined bowling effort consign IPL’s most successful team to their eighth defeat in a winless season

MUMBAI: Rohit Sharma spoke at the toss about how obvious it was that Wankhede Stadium was a chasing ground. Despite calling the toss right, having lost the knack of winning, Mumbai Indians faltered again, this time in front of a vociferous home crowd, slumping to a 36-run loss to Lucknow Super Giants—their eighth successive defeat of a winless season.

MI bowlers have had to endure a lot of pain through the season, but none more than what KL Rahul’s bat inflicted. The LSG skipper batted through the innings to bring up an unbeaten 103 (62b, 12x4, 4x6), his second ton against the same opponents in this IPL.

Despite wickets falling at the other end, Rahul appeared to be batting on a different wicket, picking up the scoring tempo at will and repeatedly taking advantage of the shorter side, collecting many boundaries square of the wicket. On a day maximums were proving difficult to come, Rahul began playing with the field with his ground strokes. Come the death overs, he collected two fours off Riley Meredith’s 18th over, then three off consecutive balls in the 19th bowled by Jaydev Unadkat. 52 runs in the final five overs helped LSG take their total to 168.

In the first half of the LSG innings, batters didn’t take any risks and only pressed the accelerator in the 10th over when Meredith missed his lengths. They took him for a 17-run over. Rahul, after completing his 50, decided to attack Daniel Sams in the 13th over, hitting two sixes on either side of the wicket. By then the slower balls had begun to work on the sluggish surface. Marcus Stoinis, promoted in the batting order, holed out to deep mid-wicket in the same Sams over for no score.

At the other end, Kieron Pollard, ringing in his own version of slower balls, accounted for Manish Pandey 22 (22b) and Krunal Pandya (1). But Rahul, who ended up scoring 60 % of LSG’s runs, kept his team moving towards a challenging total.

In quest of LSG’s 168, smarting from modest showings in the first half of IPL, Rohit Sharma began positively. Despite an unfavourable record against Sri Lanka pacer Dushmantha Chameera, Sharma wasn’t shy of using his feet, smashing him straight down the ground. While he had collected five fours and a six in the powerplay, Ishan Kishan was playing a stuttering innings. It was cut short on 8 through a stroke of misfortune, caught off the wicket-keeper’s boot, gifting spinner Ravi Bishnoi a wicket.

The surface was only going to become slower as the match progressed and boundary hitting became more difficult against spin. Sharma (39) perished attempting a sweep shot against ex-MI team mate Krunal Pandya and the in-form Suryakumar Yadav (7) fell to Ayush Badoni. Krunal finished with 3/19.

With the asking rate climbing and 92 runs required off 42 balls, Bishnoi ran in to a rampaging Tilak Varma, who read his googlies perfectly, picking him up for a 16-run over. But Varma’s 38 (27b) and Pollard’s 19 (20b) were not enough against an all-round bowling effort from LSG.

Brief scores: LSG 168/6 (KL Rahul 103*, R Meredith 2/40, K Pollard 2/8); MI 132/8 (R Sharma 39, T Varma 38, K Pandya 3/19). LSG won by 36 runs.