The dismissals of Gill and Sudharsan in successive overs, however, brought LSG back into the contest. While Avesh Khan had Gill caught at the long-on boundary with a cutter, Bishnoi had Sudharsan caught at cover with a skiddy wrong ‘un. Bishnoi also had Washington Sundar chopping on for 2 with the wrong ‘un.

Mystery spinner Rathi, who had two catches dropped off his bowling, eventually wrote his name into the wickets column when Thakur held onto a tough chance at short fine leg to dismiss Jos Buttler for 16 off 14 balls. Thakur then closed out the innings with his nifty variations, which fetched him the wickets of Sherfane Rutherford and Rahul Tewatia in the final over. From 120 for 0 after 12 overs, they finished on 180 for 6.

LSG rattled off 61 for 0 in the powerplay, with Markram claiming 38 of those. Pant, who had bumped himself up the order, got off to a more sedate start and was in discomfort after being struck on the knee by left-arm seamer Arshad Khan.

Pant was happy to ride in Markram’s slipstream before he attacked Rashid Khan in the last over of the powerplay, slog-sweeping the wristspinner for four over midwicket. In the next over, though, when he charged at Prasidh Krishna,  the bowler shifted his line wide of off stump and had Pant slicing a catch to deep third for 21 off 18 balls. Markram, meanwhile, mixed orthodox strokeplay with T20 innovation to bring up a 26-ball fifty.

Pooran had already hit two sixes by the time GT introduced R Sai Kishore into the attack in the tenth over. The first delivery, which seemed like the carrom ball, was whacked over midwicket for six. He then smoked the left-arm fingerspinner for two more sixes off the next three balls he bowled to him and dumped him out of the attack. With his big hits, Pooran brought the asking rate down to a run-a-ball. He ended up with seven sixes on the day, extending his tally to 31 sixes this IPL. The next best on the list hasn’t even hit half as many.

On the day, Pooran alone hit four more sixes than the entire GT team.

By the time Rashid removed Pooran in the 16th over, LSG needed 26 off 28 balls. Ayush Badoni, LSG’s Impact Player, helped knock off those runs with an unbeaten cameo.

Brief scores:
Lucknow Super Giants 186 for 4  in 19.3 overs (Nicholas Pooran 61, Aiden Markram 58, Rishabh Pant 21, Ayush Badoni 28*;  Prasidh Krishna 2-26, Rashid Khan 1-35, Washington Sundar 1-28) beat Gujarat Titans180 for 6 in 20 overs (Shubhman Gill 60, Bhardwaj Sai Sudharsan 56, Jos Buttler 16, Sherfaine Rutherford 22, Masood  Shahrukh Khan 11*; Shardul Thakur 2-24, Digvesh Rathi 1-30, Avesh Khan 1-32, Ravi Bishnoi 2-36) by six wickets

[Cricinfo]