KL Rahul led from the front by scoring a splendid century as the Lucknow Super Giants defeated the Mumbai Indians by 36 runs at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai on Sunday.
After being asked to bat first by MI skipper, Quniton De Kock along with skipper Rahul got Lucknow off to a solid start as they added 27 runs for the opening wicket.
De Kock who was dropped by Tilak Verma at midwicket, perished immediately as he was caught at short extra cover by Rohit Sharma off Jasprit Bumrah for 10.
Skipper Rahul and Manish Pandey featured in 58 run stand for the second wicket before the latter top edged a short ball from Kieron Pollard to Riley Meredith at short fine leg for a run ball 22.
Lucknow suffered a middle-order collapse, falling to 5-121 before Rahul rescued them by scoring a magnificent unbeaten 62 ball-103 to lift the Super Giants to 168/6 in their allotted 20 overs.
For MI, Riley Meredith and Kieron Pollard claimed 2 wickets each.
Chasing 169, openers Rohit Sharma and Ishan Kishan got Mumbai off to a steady start. The duo added 49 runs for the opening wicket before the latter bottom-edged onto Quinton de Kock’s shoe and rebounded to Jason Holder at slips.
Mohsin Khan then got into the act by dismissing Dewald Brevis (3), caught at third man by Dushmantha Chameera.
Rohit fell for 39, top edging a slog off Krunal Pandya to substitute K Gowtham at short third man.
Ayush Badoni then dented Mumbai’s hopes by claiming the prize scalp of the in form Suryakumar Yadav for 7.
Tilak Verma along with Kieron Pollard put on 57 valuable runs for the fifth wicket before the former hit a full toss from Jason Holder straight to Ravi Bishnoi at deep midwicket for a 27 ball-38.
In the end Mumbai ended up with 132/8, thereby losing the contest by 36 runs.
For Lucknow, Krunal Pandya was the pick of the bowlers with figures of 3/19.