Lucknow’s 18-run win powered by KL Rahul’s 103 not out and a 3-for from Avesh Khan on Saturday afternoon virtually knocked out the most successful team in the history of Indian T20 Cricket League tournament, Mumbai, from the ongoing 15th edition of the mega T20 event.
The loss in a high-scoring game at the Brabourne Stadium — where big totals are chaseable — was the sixth on the trot for the R Sharma-led team, who are now left with an uphill task if they have to finish in the top four teams who will advance to the knockouts round.
On Saturday, Mumbai were guilty of producing ordinary performance with the ball in the first half of the game after they elected to field. Lucknow captain KL Rahul continued with his splendid run of scores against Mumbai, with the right-handed batsmen scoring 103 not out from just 60 balls with 5 sixes and 9 boundaries to power his side to a strong total of 199/4.
In the reply, Mumbai had none of their batsmen stepping up against the Lucknow bowlers, with the top score coming from the dependable Suryakumar Yadav who missed scoring a half-century after three consecutive matches in which he has waged a lone battle.
Suryakumar Yadav scored 37 from 27 balls with the help of 3 boundaries but the rest of the Mumbai batting lineup cut a sorry figure after yet another disappointing performance, especially on a pitch which was full of runs and has supported batsman in every match played at the Brabourne Stadium in Mumbai.
After KL Rahul dazzled with the bat for the Lucknow side, one of the two new teams in this tournament, Avesh Khan produced a fine spell of fast bowling to return with 4-0-30-3 whereas the others in Jason Holder, Dushmantha Chameera and Ravi Bishnoi and Marcus Stoinis returning with one wicket apiece.
In reply to Lucknow's total of 199/4, Mumbai finished at 181/9 with plenty of their batsmen getting starts but failing to convert. That said, the biggest disappointment came from the star opening pair of captain R Sharma and Ishan Kishan, who were dismissed early in a crucial game for 6 and 13 respectively.
The defeat has left Mumbai Indians with no other choice but to win each of their remaining matches and hope that there are other results going in their favour as well. This is indeed a herculean task for a team which has looked a pale shadow of itself compared to the past few seasons, especially with the ball despite having a world-class bowler in Jasprit Bumrah.
KL Rahul and Quinton de Kock set up the platform for a strong first innings total when they added 52 runs for the first wicket. Quinton de Kock perished for a 13 ball 24 after hitting four boundaries and a six, being trapped leg-before by Mumbai all-rounder Fabian Allen who played his first match of the season.
KL Rahul then joined forces with Manish Pandey to take their side ahead, with the latter finally coming good with the bat for Lucknow this season, scoring 38 from 29 balls with the help of 6 boundaries.
Marcus Stoinis could manage only 10 from 9 balls and Deepak Hooda scored 15 from 8 balls as Lucknow finished at a strong total,, which proved beyond the reach of Mumbai.
Mumbai were guilty of losing wickets at regular intervals with R Sharma being the first one to depart after he was caught behind by de Kock off Avesh Khan.
Marcus Stoinis trapped Ishan Kishan leg-before for 13 from 17 balls with the help of two boundaries and despite fightback from Dewald Brevis (31) and Suryakumar Yadav, Mumbai just did not have enough fuel to go the distance.
The five-time title winners were also let down by their dependable all-rounder Kieron Pollard, who has been struggling for runs in the Indian T20 Cricket League season 2022.
Kieron Pollard could manage only 25 from 14 balls with a couple of sixes and a boundary that raised hopes for Mumbai to stage a late fightback, which never really happened as Lucknow recorded a big victory to a move to the second spot in the points table with 8 points and 6 matches following 4 victories and 2 defeats.
Devarchit Varma is a cricket writer and journalist with an experience of more than a decade, having worked at Hindustan Times (newspaper) and CricketCountry (website). Along with covering international and domestic cricket, he has also interviewed several current and former top players such as Rohit Sharma, Steve Smith, Dale Steyn, Michael Hussey, Jacques Kallis, Brendon McCullum, Shane Watson, Lasith Malinga and many more. He has also worked in other beats as a journalist in Bollywood (Reliance BigOye) and IT (SiliconIndia) industries.
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