Marsh’s explosive 38-ball 90 guides them to a seven-wicket triumph
Lucknow: Mitchell Marsh’s 38-ball 90 was a stunning rhapsody of power, carrying an already-eliminated Lucknow Super Giants to a seven-wicket win over Chennai Super Kings in an IPL match here on Friday.
Once the Super Kings posted a healthy 187 for five, which was built around Kartik Sharma’s prudent 71, the Super Giants’ task was cut out on a slightly two-paced track. But Marsh, who along with his Australia teammate Josh Inglis (36, 31b) added 135 runs for the opening wicket to make a mockery of the pitch and even more so of some listless bowling by CSK.
Chennai stayed on 12 points from as many games, and now they need to win both their remaining matches and some other results to go their way to have a chance to enter the play-offs. There was some assistance to exploit on the deck, particularly if you dug the ball in, but the Chennai bowlers were more keen to discover from non-existent swing while pitching the ball up.
On other occasions, the attempted snorters turned out to be pathetic half-trackers, but Marsh was not complaining.
The 34-year-old gorged on the offerings in his inimitable style. Pacer Anshul Kamboj felt the brute strength of ‘Bison’ while getting pasted for four sixes in a row with a four to boot in the fifth over the chase. The over yielded 28 runs. The LSG ended the Power Play with an impressive 86 without loss and Marsh continued to drive his side.
Pacer Spencer Johnson was his next target, hitting him for two fours and a six as the runs flowed in thick and fast.
