Marcus Stoinis produced a brilliant innings under pressure to guide Lucknow Super Giants to a crucial victory over Mumbai Indians in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023 on Tuesday. Stoinis kept his calm on a tricky pitch to score an unbeaten 89 off 47 deliveries and that proved to be the difference maker in a close match. While Stoinis was calm and calculated in the first part of his innings, the Australia all-rounder broke loose in the 18th over and ended up scoring 24 runs against Chris Jordan. The over had just one dot ball as Stoinis slammed two boundaries and three huge sixes.
Stoinis started with a six over long-on to bring up his half-century but missed out on the next one as he slammed it straight to the fielder. However, he was back to his destructive self as the third ball was a slower off-cutter and it was dispatched promptly to the backward square leg boundary.
The over kept getting worse for Jordan as the fourth ball was slammed for a four through backward point and the next one went sailing over long-on for the second six of the over. The last ball was once again a slow off-cutter and this time, Stoinis heaved it over short fine leg for a boundary.
It was a sublime piece of batting by the overseas star who has been instrumental in LSG's success in IPL 2023 and his batting left Mumbai Indians skipper Rohit Sharma both stunned and frustrated.
LSG went on to beat MI by 5 runs as Mohsin Khan produced a brilliant performance in the last over.