Openers Mitchell Marsh and Aiden Markram hit half-centuries to set up a tense 12-run victory for Lucknow Super Giants against IPL heavyweights Mumbai Indians on Friday.

Five-time champions Mumbai suffered an early blow when former skipper Rohit Sharma missed the match due to an injury to his knee during training, AFP reported.

Mumbai skipper Hardik Pandya claimed his maiden T20 five-wicket haul and then hit an unbeaten 28 off 16 balls but the effort went in vain as his team slipped to their third defeat in four matches.

Lucknow posted 203-8 as Marsh, who hit 60, and Markram, who made 53, put on 76 runs for the opening wicket after being invited to bat first at their home ground.

Bowlers combined to restrict Mumbai to 191-5 despite Suryakumar Yadav’s 43-ball 67 and Pandya’s late blitz as Lucknow bounced back from a loss for their second win in four matches.

Mumbai needed 29 off the last 12 balls when Shardul Thakur gave away just seven runs in the 19th over and fellow quick Avesh Khan kept his calm after being hit for a six on the first ball of the last over.

Mumbai’s impact substitute Tilak Varma made 25 off 23 balls before he retired out in the penultimate over.

Australia Marsh set up victory with an attacking 31-ball knock that set the tone for the hosts’ domination as he smashed nine fours and two sixes.

Marsh, who is playing in this IPL only as a batsman and registered his third half-century of this season, finally fell caught and bowled to rookie left-arm wrist spinner Vignesh Puthur.

West Indies left-hander Nicholas Pooran departed after his quick 12 as Pandya got his first and soon dismissed skipper Rishabh Pant for two.

Wicketkeeper-batsman Pant, who broke an IPL auction record when he went to Lucknow for a whopping $3.21 million, has flopped with the bat with scores of 0, 15 and two in the earlier matches.

Markram stood firm and put together 51 runs with Ayush Badoni, who hit 30, to pull Lucknow through the middle phase before fellow South African David Miller joined the charge.

Pandya kept up his bowling form as he sent back Markram but the left-handed Miller hit 27 off 14 balls to boost the total.

Pandya took two successive wickets in the 20th over but a hat-trick was avoided after a wide ball and he finished with figures of 5-36 — a first five-wicket haul for an IPL captain.

Saturday’s Matches

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BBCI) announced Wednesday that Match 19 of the Indian Premier League (IPL) between Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) and Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) has been rescheduled and will be played on Tuesday, April 8 at 2:30 pm Kabul time. 

The match was originally scheduled to take place this Sunday, April 6. 

Sunday will now be a single-header match day, opposed to the usual double-header schedule. Sunrisers Hyderabad will play Gujarat Titans at 6 pm Kabul time as originally scheduled. 

However, two matches will be played on Tuesday, April 8. First up will be KKR vs LSG, followed by the Punjab Kings vs Chennai Super Kings. 

Wednesday’s match

Wednesday, April 2, saw Punjab Kings cruise to an 8-wicket win over Lucknow Super Giants after a dominant all-round performance.

A disciplined bowling effort restricted LSG to 171/7 at home before PBKS chased it down in style. 

Player-of-the-Match Prabhsimran Singh (69 off 34), skipper Shreyas Iyer (52* off 30), and Nehal Wadhera (43* off 25) powered the visitors to a flawless finish, keeping them unbeaten in the league. 

This convincing win propelled PBKS to second place in the points table, boosting their confidence for the games ahead.

Thursday’s match

Today, Thursday April 3, will see Kolkata Knight Riders take on Sunrisers Hyderabad at Eden Gardens in Kolkata.

The match will start at 6 pm Kabul time. Once again, Ariana Television will  broadcast this thrilling event live across Afghanistan. 

An exasperated Chennai Super Kings coach Stephen Fleming said their failure to read the pitch at Chepauk has denied them any home advantage in the new season of the Indian Premier League (IPL).

Five-time champion Chennai suffered their biggest defeat at home, in terms of runs, on Friday when Royal Challengers Bengaluru thumped them by 50 runs, Reuters reported.

“Well, as we’ve been telling you for a number of years, there was no home advantage at Chepauk,” Fleming said after Chennai’s first defeat of the new season.

“We haven’t been able to read the wickets here in the last couple of years,” he added. “So it’s not new. We are trying to come to grips each day with what we get, and we don’t know.”

Chennai’s spinners were not really effective, while Josh Hazlewood led Bengaluru’s superb pace display to set up their victory.

“It’s not the Chepauk (of old) where you can just go in and play four spinners,” former New Zealand captain Fleming said. “We’re having to work really hard to try and understand what the nature of each pitch is, and it’s quite different.”

Even the dew that Fleming had expected set in during the second innings did not materialise and Chennai fell well short of their target of 197.

“No, we didn’t get it right,” Fleming said. “It’s so hard to read, but we thought it was going to skid on with the dew, but it actually got a bit tacky. So, it certainly made it (batting) harder here.”

Saturday’s Match