Lucknow Super Giants
Marcus Stoinis is mobbed by his team-mates after his match-winning century•Getty Images
LSG’s stuttering start
Deepak Chahar got the new ball to swing in both directions and had Quinton de Kock chopping one onto his stumps in the opening over. Rahul and Stoinis kept LSG on track with a flurry of boundaries before CSK struck again.
Having hit a boundary earlier in the over, Rahul tried to go aerial against Mustafizur Rahman but failed to clear Gaikwad at extra cover. LSG finished the powerplay on 45 for 2.
Stoinis keeps LSG in contest
Devdutt Padikkal came in as Impact Player but struggled with timing. Meanwhile, Stoinis singlehandedly kept LSG in the contest by hitting boundaries at regular intervals. He brought up his fifty off 26 balls, with six fours and two sixes.
Still, it was an uphill task. LSG needed 128 from the last ten overs, of which Matheesha Pathirana was to bowl four and Mustafizur three. Pathirana ended Padikkal’s struggle on 13 off 19 balls with a 150 kph yorker that uprooted leg stump.
The dew effect
Dew in the second half of the game was the only reason LSG had opted to chase. They have otherwise preferred to set the target this season. The first obvious sign of dew having an impact came in the 13th over, when Tushar Deshpande bowled a beamer. Stoinis hit it for four. And when Mustafizur dug a cutter into the pitch, the ball came onto the bat nicely, and Stoinis launched it to the straight boundary off the back foot.
When Shardul Thakur got the 16th over, Stoinis and Pooran knew they had to cash in, with the remaining four shared by Mustafizur and Pathirana. Pooran hit the first three balls for 6, 4, 6 and LSG eventually took 20 runs off Shardul.
Stoinis silences Chepauk
Pooran holed out to long-off against Pathirana when LSG needed 53 from 22 balls. Once again, it was all up to Stoinis. He hit Pathirana for a four before pulling Mustafizur for a six in the 18th over. Two balls later, he brought up his hundred.
With 32 required from two overs, Stoinis and Hooda picked up three boundaries in the first four balls from Pathirana. It left them needing 17 from six balls.
Stoinis launched the first delivery from Mustafizur over long-on before drilling the next straight back for four. Luck, too, favoured him as the next one raced past short third for another boundary. It turned out, Mustafizur had overstepped as well, which reduced the equation to two needed from four balls. Stoinis then moved across and pulled a short-of-length ball over backward square leg to complete the job.
At the toss, Rahul had said that it was not easy to silence Chepauk. By the end of the day, LSG had done that too.
Hemant Brar is a sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo