Lucknow Super Giants beat Royal Challengers Bengaluru by 9 runs at the Ekana Stadium in Lucknow on Tuesday in a rain-hit IPL match reduced to 19 overs a side. The contest tilted late, but it was Krunal Pandya’s on-field flashpoint with Nicholas Pooran that added another layer to a night already packed with runs, stoppages and pressure.
Pandya came on to bowl in the 10th over against Arshin Kulkarni and dismissed him on the very next delivery before Pooran walked in. He then beat Pooran with a 118 kph bouncer, and after the batter took a quick single on the next ball, the exchange turned heated. Pandya’s words were caught in the moment: “Show me the six-meter shot.”
The argument sat inside a high-scoring match that had already swung hard toward Lucknow. Mitchell Marsh made 111, reaching his century in 49 balls for the fastest hundred by a Lucknow Super Giants batter, before walking back to a standing ovation. Rishabh Pant added a brisk 32 not out off 10 balls, and Lucknow closed on 209/3 before Bengaluru were set a revised target of 213 under the DLS method.
That target proved just out of reach. Pandya and late efforts from Romario Shepherd kept Bengaluru alive, but they still finished 9 runs short. The match had been stopped three times for rain in the first innings, and the weather kept distorting the rhythm even as Marsh kept hitting through it. In the second over of Lucknow’s innings, he struck two sixes off Josh Hazlewood, one of them hitting a cameraman on the head, a moment that summed up the force of the innings as much as the scoreboard did.
There was one more milestone tucked into the evening. Bhuvneshwar Kumar became the first pacer to play 200 IPL matches, a quiet landmark in a game that otherwise belonged to pace, power and a brief confrontation. Virat Kohli was among those applauding Marsh’s innings from the field, a sign of how complete the knock looked even to the opposition.
What unfolded at Ekana was not just a rain-shortened finish but a match shaped by one batter’s control and one bowler’s edge. Marsh’s 111 gave Lucknow the total that held, while Pandya’s exchange with Pooran gave the chase a sharper, uglier pulse than the margin alone might suggest.
