Spin test awaits rampaging Mumbai Indians in Lucknow – T20 IPL 2024

Big picture: Will Mumbai Indians go hard against LSG’s spinners?

From the high-scoring highway of Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai Indians now fly to the dusty turner of Lucknow; in terms of run rates this IPL, it’s a journey from the fastest scoring ground straight to the slowest.

The most interesting aspect of that journey is that Mumbai have been chasing down one 200-plus total after another, and on Tuesday they will play on a pitch that is much slower, tougher to score on, and turns much more, and they will have to adjust to the alien conditions right when the playoff race is getting hotter. Mumbai and Lucknow Super Giants are neck and neck at third and fourth places, only separated by a point, and whoever loses on Tuesday will have to depend on other results to qualify.

How the Mumbai batters counter LSG spinners will be key. For example, Ishan Kishan has been dismissed for a combined five times in the IPL while facing 23 balls from the duo of Amit Mishra and Ravi Bishnoi. Will Mumbai still go ahead with their crash-bang approach or will they reconsider their strategy a little?

Another question for Mumbai will be whether they bring in a third spinner in the XI to accompany Piyush Chawla and Kumar Kartikeya.

Super Giants, meanwhile, don’t have a great record to boast of in Lucknow. They have won just two of the five completed games on their home ground, and the last of those came more than a month ago. What bodes well for them, though, is that their batting is really coming together and the likes of Nicholas Pooran and Marcus Stoinis will want to go big again to match Mumbai’s hard-hitting prowess.

Form guide

Lucknow Super Giants WLLWL (last five completed games, most recent first)
Mumbai Indians WWLWW

Impact Player strategy

Super Giants can sub Mishra and Ayush Badoni for each other depending on whether they bat or bowl first.

Lucknow Super Giants (probable XII): 1 Quinton de Kock (wk), 2 Kyle Mayers, 3 Krunal Pandya (capt), 4 Marcus Stoinis, 5 Nicholas Pooran, 6 Ayush Badoni, 7 Deepak Hooda, 8 Ravi Bishnoi, 9 Avesh Khan, 10 Mohsin Khan, 11 K Gowtham, 12 Amit Mishra

Mumbai could bring in offspinner Hrithik Shokeen to target LSG’s left-hand batters. Their impact strategy could be to sub Tilak Varma or Suryakumar Yadav for one of the frontline bowlers.

Mumbai Indians (probable XII): 1 Rohit Sharma (capt), 2 Ishan Kishan (wk), 3 Suryakumar Yadav, 4 Tilak Varma/Vishnu Vinod, 5 Cameron Green, 6 Nehal Wadhera, 7 Tim David, 8 Chris Jordan, 9 Piyush Chawla, 10 Jason Behrendorff, 11 Kumar Kartikeya, 12 Hrithik Shokeen

The big question

Which team is likely to score runs more easily in Lucknow?

432 votes

Mumbai: their hard-hitting batters can do it on any pitch

LSG: they have the home ground advantage along with the fiery middle order

Stats that matter

Mishra has also dismissed Rohit the most number of times in the IPL (seven, joint with Sunil Narine), while conceding only 87 runs off 91 balls.

While Stoinis has smashed 125 runs off 52 balls from Chris Jordan without being dismissed yetin all T20s, the fast bowler has fared much better against Quinton de Kock, to dismiss him four times in 33 balls while conceding 45 runs in all T20s.

Pitch and conditions

The black-soil surface in Lucknow which assists spinners might be the only way to stop Mumbai from scoring 200, but even 150-odd is a winning score here batting first. Teams batting first and second have won three games each on this ground, which means the toss may not play a very crucial role unless there’s dew later in the evening.

Vishal Dikshit is an assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo

Source: ESPN Crickinfo