Marcus Stoinis Ton Trumps Ruturaj Gaikwad's Knock, Helps LSG Beat CSK By Six Wickets

Marcus Stoinis made a bustling unbeaten hundred, a perfect anti-thesis to Ruturaj Gaikwad's classy century to shepherd Lucknow Super Giants to a stunning six-wicket win over Chennai Super Kings in their IPL match on Tuesday. Stoinis (124, 63b, 13x4, 6x6) helped the Super Giants to mount the highest chase – 211 – at the Chepauk in IPL, ending up at 213 for four. Gaikwad (108, 60b, 12x4, 3x6) and Shivam Dube (66, 27b, 3x4, 7x6) added 104 runs for the fourth-wicket stand to power the Super Kings to a competitive 210 for four. Thus, LSG also scored a rare back-to-back home and away win over Chennai as they had won the match at Ekana Stadium a few days back.

Stoinis' innings was in direct contrast to the silken smooth knock of Gaikwad.

The Australian's 6'1 inch frame is a storehouse of power and he made no effort to hide it too, crunching some fours and sixes, and nothing was more special than his maximum off pacer Mustafizur Rahman, who had earlier consumed LSG skipper KL Rahul cheaply.

Rahman pitched an off-cutter slightly fuller on the off-stump from over the wicket, but Stoinis produced a physics-defying straight crunch over the bowlers' head for a six.

At the other end, Pooran was on overdrive from ball one, partly because of the linear 55-run stand between Stoinis and a struggling Devdutt Padikkal (13, 19b), whose misery was ended when Pathirana produced a 151 kmph scorcher to uproot the batter's leg stump.

It mandated that Pooran, who added 70 with Stoinis, did not have the luxury of taking his time to settle in, but he was up to the task and smoked Shardul Thakur for 20 runs in the 16th over including two sixes and a four.

Pooran's dismissal by pacer Matheesha Pathirana left the task of taking LSG home to Stoinis, who