At the halfway mark, Mumbai Indians were driving on cruise control with Suryakumar Yadav and Cameron Green. The two right-handers made most of the true bounce and no spin, and put MI in a really good position at 98/2. Unlike the Chennai Super Kings-Gujarat Titans Qualifier 1 game last evening, the pitch wasn’t holding up and the gentle breeze made life easier for the batters in the middle. Both Surya and Green first cashed in on the powerplay and then sustained momentum in the next four overs. The stand was already worth 60 and LSG, in desperate need of a wicket, went Naveen-ul-Haq’s way. During a similar period last evening, Mohit Sharma, with his cutters and change of pace, was very effective and Krunal Pandya would have expected something similar from his seamer.
Ever since that heated altercation with Virat Kohli, Naveen has remained in the spotlight and his Instagram stories and tweets have attracted more attention than his performance in the middle. Every time he would stand on top of his bowling mark, the capacity crowd at Chepauk would go berserk with “Kohli, Kohli” chants and they grew louder with every boundary he conceded or wide he bowled. In the stands, there were scattered shades of blue and yellow but none of the playing teams had any sort of crowd advantage behind them. The loudest chants were reserved for Virat Kohli, who is possibly some thousand kilometres away from the action.
IPL 2023 LSG vs MI Eliminator Highlights
The chants, however, didn’t pull Naveen down, they spurred him on as the seamer went on to derail MI’s innings with wickets of Surya and Green in the same over, after the early wicket of Rohit Sharma in his first over. Like Mohit, Naveen relied on variations and effectively used the cutters in second half of the MI innings. The leg-cutter outside off forced Surya to miscue the big hit to K Gowtham in the deep and Green was undone by the scrambled off-cutter which came in sharply and went through the gate. In the space of six deliveries, Naveen sucked the momentum out of MI’s innings and celebrated the prized scalps by standing still and putting his fingers into both ears. Just like his LSG skipper KL Rahul and footballer Ayoze Pérez.
Neither the crowd nor Naveen were done yet. When Naveen was back for his third over – 16th of the MI innings – the “Kohli, Kohli” chants returned and turned louder when Tilak Verma dispatched one into the stands. The crowd, confused for most of the evening on who to chant for, finally figured what to do and preserved their lungs for the grand finale – Naveen’s final over. In context of the game, it was an important 18th over as momentum could have swung either way in the last three. Three wides, one six off the first three and the stands were remembering Kohli again. This time even louder. Naveen looked a bit flustered after three back-to-back wides and Pandya had to calm his bowler down for second half of the over.
Both LSG and Naveen took a sigh of relief in the next ball as Tilak Verma was sent back to the hut courtesy a well-judged catch by Deepak Hooda in the deep and the fingers were back in the bowler’s ears to celebrate the fourth scalp of the evening. And for a change, Naveen was topping social media trends but this time for cricketing reasons.
During the mid-innings chat with broadcasters, the seamer spoke about no turn in the strip and how ball was coming nicely onto the bat. He added it was a better wicket than the LSG-CSK game last night. On his spell, the 23-year-old was pleased with the wickets of Surya and Green in the same over.
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“It’s a good enough total, we were expecting it to grip and spin, but it was coming on to the bat nicely. You can play on the up, it’s a better wicket than CSK – GT game. I think they (Green and Surya) had a good partnership, and we needed a breakthrough at that point. LSG were expecting those two wickets from me, and I delivered at the right time,” said Naveen.
Naveen’s 4/38 was the fifth-best bowling performance by a LSG bowler in the IPL and his spell didn’t allow MI to go in excess of 200, something which looked achievable at the halfway mark. The mangoes would have tasted sweeter had his spell come in a winning cause but a disappointing show with the bat meant LSG fell short of the 183-run target by 81 runs and were knocked out from the competition. Just like last year, where they lost to Royal Challengers Bangalore in the Eliminator, LSG have failed to advance to Qualifier 2 for the second consecutive season.
On a pitch which had no demons, LSG are themselves to blame for the shoddy effort with the bat as their innings never got going. Marcus Stoinis was the only batter who put up a fight but his unfortunate run-out for 27-ball 40 meant mere formalities were left to be completed. For Mumbai Indians, it was a clinical bowling performance led by Akash Madhwal, who returned with match-winning figures of 5/5.
Brief Scores: Mumbai Indians: 182 for 8 in 20 overs (Cameron Green 41, Suryakumar Yadav 33; Naveen-ul-Haq 4/38, Yash Thakur 3/34).
Lucknow Super Giants: 101 all out in 16.3 overs (Marcus Stoinis 40; Akash Madhwal 5/5).
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