Shahrukh Khan and Sherfane Rutherford kept GT in the game but they eventually fell well short
Hemant Brar22-May-20252:23
Moody: Marsh has ‘golden ticket’ to intimidate bowlers
Mitchell Marsh scored his maiden IPL hundred, and his second in all T20 cricket, to set the platform for Lucknow Super Giants’ (LSG) 33-run consolation win over Gujarat Titans (GT) in Ahmedabad.Sent into bat, LSG rode on Marsh’s 117 off 64 balls and Nicholas Pooran’s unbeaten 56 off 27 to post a mammoth 235 for 2 on a high-scoring black-soil surface.In reply, GT lost Shubman Gill, B Sai Sudharsan and Jos Buttler in 9.3 overs – the earliest that has happened in IPL 2025 – but their largely untested middle order gave LSG a tough fight. Sherfane Rutherford and Shahrukh Khan added 86 in just 40 balls for the fourth wicket.Related
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GT needed 54 in the last four overs with six wickets in hand. But after Will O’Rourke dismissed Rutherford with the first ball of the 17th, the chase petered out. The last four overs produced only 20 and not a single boundary.The defeat also hurt GT’s chances of a top-two finish.GT’s slippery startGT had a slippery start after they won the toss and put LSG in. Arshad Khan slipped twice in his delivery stride in the second over of the innings. Apparently, there was too much grass around the landing area. Two overs later, the ball slipped out of Kagiso Rabada’s hands. Aiden Markram took evasive action but Hawk-Eye deemed it to be a legal delivery. It showed the ball would have been 1.11 metres high at the batting crease, 2cm below Markram’s waist when standing upright. In between, Marsh and Markram had a few mis-hits and also found some boundaries. By the end of the powerplay, LSG had reached 53 for no loss.1:47
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Marsh, Pooran annihilate GTWith two right-handers in the middle, Gill introduced R Sai Kishore into the attack before Rashid Khan. Marsh hit two sixes off his first eight balls but the spinner broke the 91-run opening stand soon after with Markram’s wicket.That brought to the crease Pooran and more carnage. He and Marsh added 121 runs in just 52 balls. Rashid came to bowl the 12th over. Before this game, Marsh had scored only 31 off 33 balls against him. Tonight, he went 6, 4, 6, 4, 4, 1 in his first over.With Pooran in the middle, Gill took the gamble of giving Sai Kishore another over. It did not come off as Pooran farmed the strike and hit the spinner for one six and one four in four balls.Marsh had taken 33 balls for his first fifty. For his second, he needed only 23. Pooran’s fifty also came in 23 balls. In the final over, Rishabh Pant gave a glimpse of what-if as he hit Rabada for two sixes to finish unbeaten on 16 off six balls.Digvesh Rathi wasn’t around but Akash Singh’s notebook was out•AFP/Getty Images
A rare “failure” for Gill, Sudharsan and ButtlerComing into this game, Gill, Sai Sudharsan and Buttler had scored 76.87% of GT’s bat runs in the season. In their previous game, Gill and Sai Sudharsan had chased down 200 against Delhi Capitals (DC) on their own. The two once again looked sublime and added 46 in 4.3 overs before Sai Sudharsan chipped O’Rourke to mid-off where Markram dived forward to take a low catch.Buttler hit two fours and two sixes off Avesh Khan in the sixth over to keep the momentum going. But in his next over, Avesh had Gill slicing one to Abdul Samad at wide long-off for another excellent catch.Two overs later, Buttler was also back in the pavilion. Akash Singh, who had split his webbing earlier, returned with a heavily strapped right hand and breached Buttler’s defence with a slower one. Akash dedicated the wicket to Digvesh Rathi by bringing out the notebook celebration. After ten overs, GT were 97 for 3 and needed 139 more in the remaining ten.Will O’Rourke’s two-wicket 17th over turned the game in LSG’s favour•BCCI
GT’s middle order stands upBefore this game, GT’s middle order (Nos. 4-7) had the lowest average (21.39) in the league but also the highest strike rate (165.65). In a way, it was a corollary of their prosperous top order. On Thursday, however, GT did not want their middle order to just flash. They wanted them to keep the fire burning.Rutherford and Shahrukh did exactly that. They smashed three fours and three sixes to ransack 36 runs from overs 14th and 15th, bowled by Avesh and Shahbaz Ahmed, respectively. LSG were still the favourites but GT were also in with a fair chance. O’Rourke then dealt the decisive blow. He conceded only four in the 17th over and bookended it with the wickets of Rutherford and Rahul Tewatia. Shahrukh, who had brought up his fifty off 22 balls, swung hard but kept losing his shape as LSG seized control.