@B0$
Lucknow Super Giants had Josh Inglis, Chennai Super Kings had Urvil Patel. LSG got 91/1 in their first six overs. CSK smashed 97/1. Inglis's carnage meant LSG crossed 200 despite a middle-order muddle. Urvil ambushed them with a six-filled feast, slamming the joint-fastest fifty with a blur of sweetly timed bat-throwing. LSG would have wished for a lot more, but Jamie Overton jammed them. A Shahbaz Ahmed cameo trickled the score past 200. Buoyed by Urvil, CSK were ruthless for the most part, before pausing at the finish line and ultimately sneaking through.
@B1$
@B2$ Lucknow Super Giants 203/8 in 20 overs [Josh Inglis 85 (33), Shahbaz Ahmed 43 (25); Jamie Overton 3-36, Anshul Kamboj 2-47) lost to Chennai Super Kings 208/5 in 19.2 overs [Urvil Patel 65 (23), Ruturaj Gaikwad 42 (28); Shahbaz Ahmed 2-30, Digvesh Rathi 2-45] by 5 wickets
@B3$
Loosely put, Urvil. In a 23-ball blitz, he cracked open the chase, seemingly turning a 204-run pursuit into a breezy stroll by the time he perished. But a vital contributor was Overton: at one point, Inglis threatened to take the game away, but his dismissal, and Pant's three balls later, put CSK back in the game. Even though he conceded 17 off his final over, Overton's triple-strike ensured LSG never reached their early projections.
@B4$
For the first half hour of the game, Inglis promised to be the headline-maker and record-breaker. It took him 17 balls to gallop past fifty, the fastest ever at the Chepauk (until Urvil). By the six-over mark, he was on 77* off 25. He punished slot balls down the ground, but the highlight was his absurd hits behind the wicket. At least thrice, he pulled that off versus the Anshul Kamboj-Mukesh Choudhary pair after having silenced Akeal Hosein. The only time that scoop misfired was in the 10th over when he tickled a catch behind to Sanju Samson. It kicked off a chain reaction of dismissals.
@B5$
If the less-than-full Chepauk looked a bit lukewarm, Inglis warmed it up rapidly with a no-holds-barred attack. But LSG could only limp in the follow-up, hit hard by a lacuna of boundaries and poor running. Brevis's direct hit sent Markram packing. In hindsight, LSG had no such magic moments on the field.
From 112/2 in nine overs, LSG were down to 130/5 in the 13th.
@B6$
Batting for only the second time this season, Shahbaz was quiet until the 17th over, ambling to 9 off 10. But a six off Mukesh unlocked him. Next over, he went after Overton, hitting 16 runs in a sequence of four balls to ensure a 200+ total. It was only the third time LSG had managed a fifty-plus stand for the seventh wicket or lower.
@B7$
Contrary to Inglis's audacious scoops, CSK's opening pair combined a little more orthodoxy with purpose. By the third over, Samson and Gaikwad matched each other toe-to-toe. Pant punted by bringing in Rathi. And the move worked after conceding a four and six, with Samson trying one shot too many.
From there, Urvil took over in breathtaking fashion. Gaikwad was happy playing second-fiddle. Urvil hit a hat-trick of sixes with baseball-style swings off Avesh Khan and proceeded to tear open Digvesh Rathi with a 25-run over filled with numbing leg-side hits. Prince Yadav and Mohammed Shami, their Powerplay cogs, crucially went wicketless.
@B8$
It felt like CSK got a little too comfortable marvelling at Urvil's onslaught that they lost sight of their target. When Brevis and Kartik departed one after another, CSK still needed 35 off 23. That was largely courtesy of two Rathi overs that amounted to eight runs combined. Call it miscalculation or complacency, the brief stutter left the Chepauk silent and their pursuit on shaky ground.
Yet, LSG's bowlers couldn't keep it tight, slipping in the odd extra or a poor ball, never taking the game too far out of CSK's reach. And at the worst time, their poor catching came to hurt them. In the penultimate over, Impact Player Prashant Veer was dropped twice on consecutive balls. Two balls later, a vital six tilted the balance again. Pant punted again, choosing Markram over Shahbaz for the 20th, but Shivam Dube's twin sixes sealed the deal.
@B9$
CSK continue their ascent, leaving far behind their hat-trick of losses at the start. They're now fifth on the table, pushing RR one slot below with a healthier net run-rate. Also, this was only their second time chasing down a 180+ score since 2019. As for LSG, the sight of a deflated Pant post-game is now a ritual. With their eighth defeat, their chances are officially over.
@B10$
It's a five-day gap for both teams before they repeat this fixture in Lucknow.
