Yesterday IPL match result: Playoff blow for CSK as Mitchell Marsh and Akash power LSG to victory

LUCKNOW: Chennai Super Kings’ push for a playoff berth hit a roadblock at the Ekana Stadium in Lucknow. On a pitch with plenty of bounce and carry, Lucknow Super Giants found an unlikely hero in left-arm pacer Akash Singh, who was playing his first match of this IPL. The former CSK pacer bowled four on the trot - three in Powerplay - and got the wickets of Ruturaj Gaikwad, Sanju Samson and Urvil Patel to finish with figures of 3-26.

While Akash’s shortpitched stuff provided the early jolt, the Australian opening duo of Mitchell Marsh and Josh Inglis rode the same bounce to finish off CSK during their chase. The same short balls that CSK batters were finding tough to handle, Marsh effortlessly sent past the boundary line as LSG galloped away to 86-0 in the powerplay. Marsh (90 off 38 balls), who has grown up playing his cricket on the bouncy WACA pitch in Perth, chose CSK’s bowler of the season Anshul Kamboj for special treatment.

In the fifth over of the innings, he kept pulling Kamboj for four consecutive sixes that took the fight out of CSK. He finished it off with one more boundary, taking 28 from the over. Inglis at the other end, also kept finding the boundary, albeit playing second fiddle, and LSG didn’t commit the same mistake that they did at Chepauk on Sunday, throwing the game away after getting 91 in Powerplay.

Marsh and Inglis put on 135 runs in 11. 4 overs and once they were dismissed off successive balls, there was a period of lull. Nicholas Pooran though finished off the sevenwicket in the 17th over taking 22 off Kamboj, leaving CSK in a must-win situation in their last two games against SRH and GT to entertain qualification hopes.