New Delhi: Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) have got a new star in the form of Mukul Chaudhary, but their poor record at home remains a matter of big concern ahead of Sunday’s match against Gujarat Titans in the Indian Premier League (IPL). LSG and Gujarat Titans have won both their last matches, which might have boosted their morale.
Gujarat had registered a thrilling one-run win against Delhi Capitals by which it also opened its account. LSG registered impressive wins against Sunrisers Hyderabad and Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) at their respective grounds. However, LSG has not been able to perform well at Ekana Cricket Stadium. If he wants to make it his stronghold, he will have to perform well in every department of the game.
Lucknow’s record on home ground is bad
LSG had lost six out of eight matches played here last season. This includes defeat in five consecutive matches. This was the reason why he stood seventh last year. It has won only nine out of 22 matches played on this ground. Even in the current season, the performance of the batsmen in the first match at their home ground was not good and Delhi Capitals got them out for 141 runs and won by six wickets.
This will be LSG’s second match of this season on home ground and they will be desperate to improve their win record here. LSG’s last match against KKR was particularly memorable, with the emergence of a new ‘finisher’ in the form of Mukul. Mukul, a 21-year-old batsman from Rajasthan, batted aggressively and attracted the attention of the cricket world by hitting a variety of shots including his idol Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s favorite helicopter shot.
Middle order batsmen are doing wonders for LSG.
Another positive for LSG is the return to form of Ayush Badoni, who scored a half-century against KKR. In this way, LSG’s batting order looks very strong which also includes Mitchell Marsh, Aiden Markram, captain Rishabh Pant and Nicholas Pooran.
This match will be played in the afternoon and it will not be easy to face Gujarat’s Rashid Khan and Washington Sundar on the slow pitch here. Rashid took three wickets for 17 runs against Delhi and played an important role in his team’s victory by one run.
The teams are as follows:
Lucknow Super Giants: Rishabh Pant (captain), Mitchell Marsh, Aiden Markram, Himmat Singh, Matthew Bretzke, Mukul Chaudhary, Akshat Raghuvanshi, Josh Inglis, Nicholas Pooran, Abdul Samad, Shahbaz Ahmed, Arshin Kulkarni, Ayush Badoni, Mohammed Shami, Avesh Khan, M Siddharth, Digvesh Singh, Akash Singh, Prince Yadav, Arjun Tendulkar, Enrique Norcia, Naman Tiwari, Mayank Yadav, Mohsin Khan.
Delhi Capitals: Axar Patel (captain), Abhishek Porel, Karun Nair, KL Rahul, Nitish Rana, Sameer Rizvi, Tristan Stubbs, Ashutosh Sharma, Madhav Tiwari, Dushmantha Chameera, Kuldeep Yadav, Mukesh Kumar, Vipraj Nigam, Mitchell Starc, Tripurana Vijay, David Miller, Ben Duckett, Aqib Nabi Dar, Pathum Nissanka, Lungi Ngidi, Prithvi Shaw, Kyle Jamieson, T Natarajan, Ajay Jadav Mandal, Sahil Parakh.
Match start time: 3.30 pm.
