Australian opener Mitchell Marsh went on a six-hitting frenzy in the powerplay, as he raced to an unbeaten 58 off 24 balls (5x4; 6x6), leading the Lucknow Super Giants to 68-0 against the Royal Challengers Bengaluru in their Tata IPL match at the Ekana Cricket Stadium in Lucknow on Thursday evening.
Marsh first took aim at his Aussie teammate Josh Hazelwood in the second over, smashing two sublime sixes back over the bowler’s head, followed by one over cover off Bhuvneshwar Kumar in the third, and another over wide long-on off Krunal Pandya in the fourth.
He crunched back-to-back sixes over deep square leg and just over long off in the fifth from Rasikh Salam, before reaching a 20-ball fifty with a cut to the boundary off Hazelwood in the final over of the powerplay.
LUCKNOW SUPER GIANTS: Mitchell Marsh, Arshin Kulkarni, Nicholas Pooran, Aiden Markram, Rishabh Pant (capt, wk), Akshat Raghuwanshi, Himmat Singh, Shahbaz Ahmed, Digvesh Rathi, Mohammed Shami, Prince Yadav
ROYAL CHALLENGERS BENGALURU: Virat Kohli, Jacon Bethell, Devdutt Padikkal, Rajat Patidar (capt), Jitesh Sharma (wk), Romario Shepherd, Krunal Pandya, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Josh Hazlewood, Suyash Sharma, Rasikh Dar