Match details Lucknow Super Giants (3rd; W6 L4) vs Kolkata Knight Riders (2nd; W7 L3)Lucknow, 19.30 IST (14.00 GMT) Big picture Fifty-plus games in, no team has qualified for the playoffs yet. Kolkata Knight Riders and Lucknow Super Giants, sitting at No. 2 and No. 3 on the table at the moment, can still miss out on qualification. Neither team will want to get caught up in the mid-table muddle,…

Sri Lanka and Chennai Super Kings (CSK) fast bowler Matheesha Pathirana has called MS Dhoni a father figure in his cricketing career, saying the former CSK captain’s small advises have given him a lot of confidence. The 21-year-old fast bowler made his IPL debut in 2022, and has since become a vital cog in CSK’s pace attack, including their title success last season. “After my father, in my cricket life,…

Mayank Yadav, the Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) quick, is set to miss the remainder of IPL 2024, although there are bleak chances that he could still feature in the playoffs if LSG make it. On being asked if Mayank was completely out of the tournament, head coach Justin Langer said: “No, we’ll be praying that he can play, hopefully, in the playoffs, but I’m a realist as well. It’ll be…

Match details Punjab Kings (seventh) vs Chennai Super Kings (fifth)Dharamsala, 1530 IST (1000 GMT) Big picture – Can PBKS make it six in a row? In IPL history, only two teams have beaten CSK in five consecutive meetings. One is, predictably, Mumbai Indians. The other is PBKS, who started their streak in 2021 and equalled MI’s on Wednesday with a seven-wicket win at Chepauk. On Sunday, they will be looking…

A “mild back stiffness” forced Rohit Sharma to play as Impact Player in Mumbai Indians’ match against Kolkata Knight Riders on Friday. “He just had a mild back stiffness so it was just a precautionary thing,” Piyush Chawla said at the post-match press conference. Rohit made 11 off 12 balls as MI failed to chase down a target of 170 on a two-paced Wankhede pitch. It was their eighth defeat…

IPL 2024 has been a mixed bag for Mitchell Starc. He was the most expensive pick ever at an IPL auction – going for INR 24.75 crore – but was also having a tough time with the ball. In an edition that is seeing an unprecedented high-scoring rate, Starc had just seven wickets and an economy of 11.78 in his first eight outings, and had conceded more than 50 three…

Manish Pandey had been waiting for an opportunity to have a say for Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) in IPL 2024 and finally got his chance on Friday. A top-order collapse after KKR had been asked to bat meant he went out as an impact player and scored a 31-ball 42 – it might not mean much in an IPL as high-scoring as this one, but played a huge role on…

West Indies 136 for 2 (Matthews 78, Campbelle 33*, Iqbal 1-24) beat Pakistan 134 for 8 (Ameen 48, Muneeba 25, Fletcher 3-17) by eight wickets Hayley Matthews ended her dream tour of Pakistan as she started it, with yet another commanding performance as West Indies coasted to an eight-wicket win in Karachi. Smashing 78 in 59 balls, the West Indies captain made light work of Pakistan’s first innings total of…

Kolkata Knight Riders 169 (Venkatesh 70, Pandey 42, Bumrah 3-18) beat Mumbai Indians 145 (Suryakumar 56, Starc 4-33) by 24 runs Kolkata Knight Riders further embedded themselves near the top of the IPL table, and Mumbai Indians’ hopes of qualifying for the final four took another big hit. How MI managed to lose a match in which they took five KKR wickets in the first 37 legal deliveries, will require…

Essex 156 (Westley 43, Pretorius 4-36) and 6 for 1 lead Somerset 128 (Porter 5-37, Cook 5-38) by 34 runs Twenty wickets fell, all to seam bowling, on an action-packed opening day of Somerset’s Vitality County Championship First Division match with Essex at Taunton. Migael Pretorius led the way for the hosts, claiming four for 36 as Essex were bowled out for 156, having lost the toss on an overcast…