Stoinis, Thakur star in LSG’s win over Gujarat

LUCKNOW: Lucknow Super Giants earned its first win against Gujarat Titans in five attempts with a comfortable 33–run victory here on Sunday. The win helped Lucknow move up to third in the table with six points from four matches, while Gujarat remains seventh after suffering its third loss in five games.

Set to chase 164, Gujarat was all out for 130 with Lucknow’s Yash Thakur taking five wickets for 30 runs, while Krunal Pandya chipped in with three for 11. Earlier, all-rounder Marcus Stoinis hit a fine fifty, his first in this edition of the tournament, while Nicholas Pooran played a cameo towards the end to guide Lucknow to 163 for 5.

LSG rode on Stoinis’ 58 off 43 balls and he was involved in a 73-run stand off 62 balls with skipper KL Rahul (33 off 31) for the third wicket.

Towards the end, Pooran made 32 off 22 balls to help his side’s cause. It was an eventful first over from Umesh Yadav (2/22) as, after being dispatched over deep backward square leg boundary by inform Quinton de Kock in the second ball of the innings, he got his man a ball later. De Kock went for a similar shot to get an outside edge and Noor Ahmad took a smart catch at the third man.

In the first ball of his next over, Umesh was pulled by Devdutt Padikkal to square leg fence but the pacer got his revenge inducing an outside edge from the left-hander and Vijay Shankar made no mistake at slips as GT slid to 18 for 2 after three overs.

BRIEF SCORES: LSG 163/5 in 20 overs (M Stoinis 58) bt Gujarat Titans 130 in 18.5 overs (Y Thakur 5/30, K Pandya 3/11)