It was the Marcus Stoinis show in Chepauk on Tuesday as the Lucknow Super Giants secured a thrilling 6-wicket victory against Chennai Super Kings, handing Ruturaj Gaikwad's team its first home defeat of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024 season. Stoinis scored his maiden IPL century, cancelling Ruturaj's hundred to take his team to the 4th spot in the points table. Usually, whenever finishes in Chepauk are talked about, it's MS Dhoni whose name is spotted in the headlines, but this time, it was a different MS (Marcus Stoinis) who stole the limelight.
Celebrating Stoinis' stunning performance, LSG shared a post that took the entire world of social media by storm. The Lucknow franchise wrote: "MS FINISHES OFF IN STYLE IN CHENNAI!", referring to Stoinis at a place where the initials MS litteraly has no other meaning that 'Mahendra Singh'.
Seeing the post go viral on social media, reactions poured in from Dhoni's fans. Here are some of them:
After CSK put a total of 210 on the board, it didn't look like LSG would be able to reach the target, considering the quality of bowlers the hosts have. But, Stoinis had other ideas. After the game, even Lucknow captain KL Rahul admitted that he didn't think the it was a 210-run surface.
"Very special, especially when it's a game like that. We were way behind the game when we were batting so it was very special to pull it off. It was a fresh start, both teams started off at 0. Different conditions here. I think they started off really well and put us under pressure. 170-180 would've been a great total here but they batted really well. Full credit to Stoinis. It was not just power hitting, it was very clever batting. He picked his bowlers and played very well," he said after the match.