On Monday, April 14, the Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) and Chennai Super Kings (CSK) squared off in Match 30 of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 at the Ekana Stadium in Lucknow.
Given the chance of dew later in the evening, CSK chose to bowl first after winning the toss.
CSK replaced Devon Conway and Ravichandran Ashwin with Shaik Rasheed and Jamie Overton, making a few other changes to their starting lineup. However, Mitchell Marsh was part of LSG’s starting lineup.
Talking points
1. Ravindra Jadeja and Noor Ahmad’s tight bowling
By bowling precise lines and lengths, the two spinners successfully contained the LSG hitters. In a clean three-over stint, the left-arm orthodox spinner took two vital wickets: Mitchell Marsh and Ayush Badoni.
Afghan spinner Noor Ahmad, meanwhile, displayed remarkable control and accuracy. At a remarkable economy rate of 3.25, he bowled his entire allotted four overs while giving up just 13 runs.
2. Rishabh Pant’s half-century puts him back in the running.
Rishabh Pant, the captain of LSG, hasn’t played well in the IPL 2025 thus far. He did, however, play a calm and mature innings against CSK, leading the team to victory. With four boundaries and four sixes, the left-handed batsman amassed a solid 63 off 49 balls.
3. A fantastic powerplay began by Rasheed and Ravindra
Devon Conway was replaced in the starting lineup by Shaik Rasheed, who had an instant effect. The right-handed hitter scored 27 runs off 19 balls with six boundaries thanks to a fluid knock.
Rachin Ravindra, on the other hand, controlled the run pace with a solid innings. He hit five boundaries and scored a respectable 37 off 22 deliveries.
4. Shivam Dube and MS Dhoni collaborate to win games.
For the sixth wicket, left-hander Shivam Dube and seasoned batsman MS Dhoni put up a logical partnership, scoring 57 runs off of just 28 balls. After five straight defeats, their cool-headed and collected stance helped CSK cross the finish line and earn a much-needed triumph.
5. The finisher, Dhoni, appears
After Vijay Shankar was dismissed, MS Dhoni entered at number seven and made his intentions clear right away. He easily found the boundary and took advantage of sloppy deliveries. In a brilliant cameo, Dhoni scored 26* runs at an incredible strike rate of 236.36 off just 11 balls, including four boundaries and one six. His powerful knock was a major factor in CSK’s victory over LSG, ending their five-match losing streak.
Who Said What?
MS Dhoni, CSK (Winning Captain) and Player of the Match said,
It’s good to win a game. When you play a tournament like this, you want to win games. Unfortunately the [earlier] matches didn’t go our way for whatever reasons. There can be lots of reasons. It’s good to have a win on our side. Gives confidence to the whole team and helps us improve in areas we want to improve. We all knew that when it doesn’t come your way in cricket, God makes it very tough, and it was a tough game. If you see the powerplay, whether it was the combination or the conditions, we were struggling with the ball.
And then we weren’t able to get the start we wanted as a batting unit. Also the fall of wickets. We keep losing wickets at the wrong time to some extent. One of the reasons could be that the Chennai wicket is slightly on the slower side. When we have played away from home, the batting unit has done slightly better. Maybe we need to play on wickets that are slightly better so that it’ll give the batters confidence to play their shots. You don’t want to play timid cricket.
Rishabh Pant, LSG (Losing Captain) said,
We feel that as a team we were 10 to 15 runs short, we kept losing wickets when the momentum was with us. We had to keep stitching in partnerships. The wicket was stopping a bit, but we could have got 15 runs more I feel. I am feeling better with each and every game, but sometimes it doesn’t come off. Slowly getting into my rhythm, taking every match at a time.
We discussed with a lot of players, but we couldn’t take him (Bishnoi) deeper, that (bowling his last over) didn’t happen today. Bowling in the powerplay has been a concern for us, but we can pull things back. As a team we are looking to take the positives from each and every game and we are trying to improve.
India
