🏏IPL 2024: Match 44 - LSG vs RR in Lucknow @ 7:30PM IST🏏 - Page 3

Are local pitch makers offering host teams enough home advantage?

The other night, with Sunrisers Hyderabad nearing another win away from home, former India captain Sunil Gavaskar pondered on the comms if merrier days were ahead for the team in their second half of the season. This, based on the fact that SRH are to play five of their seven remaining league games at their home ground. “Always good to play at home. You are more familiar with the conditions. You can ask the groundsman to make a pitch that suits you. SRH, if they score 250 plus totals, they are going to win,” Gavaskar said.

Can Yuzi work his magic tonight?

The leading wicket-taker in IPL history, Yuzvendra Chahal touched a never-heard before milestone in the history of the league on Monday. Removing Mohammad Nabi in his first over against the Mumbai Indians, Chahal became the first bowler to pick 200 wickets in IPL.

It was a typical Yuzi Chahal wicket as the leg-spinner injected a good amount of air to the ball and pitched it on the middle and leg and the Afghan all-rounder ended up finding a leading edge that travelled all the way back to the bowler.

Celebrating the landmark wicket, Chahal went down on the ground on both knees and pointed both his fingers to the sky before his teammates swarmed over him.

Why there’s more to T20 power-hitting than just going wham-bam

Here’s a dystopia for all you cricket bowling aficionados. It’s IPL 50. Your icons are no longer around. None of their kind is. A fully AI-automated bowling machine that can simulate all their deliveries for different situations – in powerplay or death overs, after snapping a wicket or being pumped for six, against a pinch hitter or a number 10 – stands in their stead. A lifeless piece of machinery, with no over-the-top reactions after getting clobbered for boundaries. The batters are all that everyone’s talking about. “No, not at all. No. No. No. It’s batter against the bowler, always,

The new heights of what a team total in T20 may look like don’t surprise Wood. “I don’t think there’s any sport in the world that improves as quickly as batting does in T20 cricket.” All the more reason, he believes, power hitting shouldn’t be reduced to a mere exercise of opening the front leg and having a swing at the ball. 

Can Sanju succeed Rohit as skipper in the T20 format?

Sanju Samson’s Rajasthan Royals has looked like a near-perfect team in the Indian Premier League 2024 losing just one of the eight games. They are placed comfortably at the top of the table and are expected to qualify for the playoffs with ease. The skipper of the side has looked good in batting and made sharp decision-making captaincy moves in the tournament thus far.

Former Indian off-spinner Harbhajan Singh would propose Sanju should take over T20I captaincy after Rohit. On his X account(Formerly known as Twitter) the 43-year-old wrote, “@IamSanjuSamson (Sanju Samson) should walks in to the Indian team for T20 worldcup and also groomed as a next T20 captain for india after rohit . koi shak ???

Stoinis, the ice-veined finisher

Marcus Stoinis knew exactly what he had to do in the last over, with his side requiring 17 runs against a deadly bowler at the death, Mustafizur Rahman. Shuffle across, keep your shape and swing down the line. If he gets at least a decent part of the wood, the ball would soar over the ropes. Mustafizur, he knew, wouldn’t go short. He would destroy those. He would not, bizarrely, slant it across from around the off-stump. Effective though the ploy was against Stoinis early on, it risked granting him unnecessary width. So the Australian waited, ready to swing his hulk-like arms down the line. Mustafizur tried to bowl a full-pelt yorker, missed it and Stoinis got under the ball and skinned it over the bowler’s head. It was almost like the game half one. The Bangladesh seamer would capsize. A length ball followed—Stoinis gleefully pummeled down the ground. Hope had deserted the yellow canyon. In the heat of the moment, Mustafizur lost his belief in cutters. He attempted another yorker, which turned out to be a low full-toss that Stoinis threw his kitchen sink at. It whistled off his bat’s edge. By now, the bowler and his teammates were convinced that this was not their night. It was the night of Stoinis, the ice-veined finisher they call the Hulk.

I like both teams! Don’t know which team to jinx☹️

It has been a strange IPL, as the season moves towards the business end, the pitches tend to get weary and start to play slow, bringing all kinds of bowling into the equation. But come this year, despite the ongoing heat wave, the scores have kept rattling higher and higher. No other season has seen so many 200+ scores as this season, no other season has seen the bowlers reduced to a mere sideshow than IPL 2024. It's been a run-fest and no bowler has been spared, not even Jasprit Bumrah. A few days back, RCB nearly chased down KKR's 222, a few days later CSK's 210 was made to look inadequate, GT then nearly ran down DC's 224, but the cruellest blow came yesterday night when PBKS razed down KKR's mammoth 261 with 8 balls to spare. The bowlers have become mere sideshows this season and they'll hope that tonight's game in Lucknow doesn't go the same way. The Super Giants are riding high after completing a double over the Chennai Super Kings and they should be confident going into another home game. But they're up against table-toppers, Rajasthan Royals, who have barely put a foot wrong this season. They've a four point cushion at the top of the pile and have one leg in the playoffs, another win tonight and they could all but guarantee a top-2 finish as well. It's 1 v 3 tonight and we should be in for an exciting contest on the cards.

Originally posted by: WildestDreams

I like both teams! Don’t know which team to jinx☹️

It's cooling down as we get into the evening here in Lucknow. 66m and 73m square boundaries while the straight boundary is massive at 80m. It's an incredible lush outfield, the wicket is made up of black clay and it means it's not a friend of the spinners There are large chink of cracks, so there could be some movement for the pacers. There is a nice grass covering and the brown patches are well rolled as well. Expect more runs, 200+ runs have been scored by the team batting first, the average 1st innings score has gone up to 170+ this season and we can expect runs on this surface, opine Matthew Hayden and Ian Bishop, in their pitch report

Go RR Go