Ahmedabad, May 23: Mitchell Marsh slammed his maiden IPL century as LSG beat playoffs-bound GT by 33 runs to snap a four-match losing streak. Marsh scored 117 off just 62 balls while Nicholas Pooran remained unbeaten on 56 from 27 balls.Marsh and Aiden Markram put on a 91-run opening stand before R Sai Kishore dismissed the latter in the 10th over. Marsh was eventually dismissed by Arshad Khan in the penultimate over before LSG captain Rishabh Pant played an unbeaten cameo off 16 to take the total past the 230-run mark.
In reply, Will O’Rourke bagged three wickets to help LSG restrict DC to 202/9 in 20 overs. Shahrukh Khan was the top performer for GT with the bat, scoring 57 off 29.
Mitchell Marsh. PoTM: I have had a few years off in between as well (on finally getting his first IPL hundred). First played for the Deccan Chargers in 2010. It’s been a while. Getting an opportunity to open the batting. The partnership with Aiden on and off the field has been amazing. Came to the IPL pretty fresh. They (GT) bowled really well in the powerplay. If you are 12 off 12 in the powerplay it’s panic stations but once we got a few good partnerships and it made things easy for us. It’s been very disappointing (to not qualify for the playoffs). The IPL is a decent competition. We lost close games and we are out of the race. Any team can beat any team in this competition on a given day, that’s why this is the best competition in the world.
Rishabh Pant: Definitely happy. We have shown as a team that we can play good cricket. There was a time in the tournament we had the chances to qualify. But that’s part and parcel of the game. We need to learn and get batter. Always a question of getting the top three but the way Shahrukh batted it definitely gives hope down the order as well. There was injury concerns coming into the tournament. The way Mitch, Markram, Pooran batted and the whole batting unit in fact. Fielding we made lapses. Learn from it and move forward.
Shubman Gill: We gave 15-20 runs extra. Wanted to stop them around 210. Huge difference between 210 and 230. We bowled well in the powerplay, didn’t get any wickets but after the powerplay in the 14 overs they scored around 180 runs which was a lot. (On the positives) We were right in the game till the 17th over, it was never easy chasing 240. Lots of positives for us – Rutherford and Shahrukh’s batting was a big plus. (Looking forward) Getting back some momentum would be key, would want to get back to winning ways heading into the playoffs.