Mitchell Marsh and Nicholas Pooran, two of the few shining specks for Lucknow Super Giants in its otherwise dull Indian Premier League campaign, did the bulk of the scoring as the already-eliminated side did the double on Gujarat Titans by 33 runs on Thursday.
The defeat was a setback to the Titans’ hopes of finishing in the top two, while the Super Giants moved past the Kolkata Knight Riders to sixth in the table.
While the Australian all-rounder became the first foreigner to score a hundred in 2025 off 56 balls, Pooran contributed with a fifty.
The Titans, opting to bowl, did well to contain LSG openers Marsh and Aiden Markram to 53 inside the PowerPlay at the Narendra Modi Stadium, where the average winning score this season has been 220. However, as time wore on and the batters dropped anchor, Shubman Gill and Co. continued to lose their grip.
Injury scare
GT’s physio had a more expansive heat-map than most of the side’s other players in the first six overs. The Titans pacer Arshad Khan, first, slipped twice near the landing area. After he hobbled off, Marsh slapped one straight back at Mohammed Siraj, who got his hand in the way. While the India international was still getting some magic spray applied onto the affected area outside the boundary rope, Kagiso Rabada was meted out the same treatment.
The first wicket came against the run of play. A moment of strategic brilliance from R. Sai Kishore saw the left-arm spinner change his bowling angle to send in a fuller delivery from over the wicket. It had Markram holing out to M. Shahrukh Khan at long-off.
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Rashid Khan’s struggles with length were laid bare once again in the 12th over under the glaring lights of the largest cricket stadium in the world. The bloodbath was so graphic that a last-ball single from Marsh almost seemed like a mercy call in the 25-run over.
Trusting himself
The highlight of Pooran’s knock had to be when he turned down a run twice in the 15th over with Marsh at the other end, choosing to trust his abilities against Sai Kishore. He eventually did rotate strike, but only after dispatching a maximum over long-on.
When Marsh eventually fell in the 19th over, the damage had already been done.
In reply, the Titans’ openers blunted the new ball to good effect after B. Sai Sudharsan staged a great escape in the second over when nobody spotted the ball taking a piece of the southpaw’s pad before being driven down the ground for four.
The free pass, however, lasted only three more overs as the Orange Cap holder chipped a slower delivery from Will O’Rourke to a diving Markram at mid off.
In the 10th over, a largely untested Titans middle order was left exposed after Akash Singh, who split the webbing on his non-bowling hand earlier while trying to stop a Gill drive on the follow-through, saw Jos Buttler’s bails light up shortly after the GT captain departed off Avesh Khan’s bowling. He pulled out the signature yet controversial ‘notebook celebration’ of Digvesh Rathi, LSG spinner who was serving a one-game ban for disciplinary issues.
This was the first time none of the Titans’ top three, who had accounted for 1,718 of the 2,335 runs (~74 per cent) the team had scored in IPL 2025 until the start of this game, survived until the 15th over.
While Sherfane Rutherford and Shahrukh’s partnership momentarily provided LSG the scares, it was never to be with O’Rourke triggering a collapse with the scalp of the Guyanese batter.
