The second match on Saturday will witness the return fixture between Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) and Rajasthan Royals (RR). The last time the two sides LSG and RR had met both were playing their first match of the season and RR had won the game by 20 runs.
Lucknow Super Giants(LSG) must’ve flown into their home city on Wednesday with a chip on their shoulder and a spring to their step. Not often do you beat CSK in Chennai, matching them phase-for-phase and outplaying them at the death. It’s the sort of win that can galvanize a side pushing for the playoffs, but their latest homecoming comes with a tale of caution. It’s not just the quality of the opposition arriving on their shores, but the added trickery of the surface where they face-off table toppers RR.
LSG vs RR Previous Performances
Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) exhibited their might with the bat as Marcus Stoinis scored a century to beat Chennai Super Kings in their own backyard. It has been a great run for the Lucknow team so far as they have played some enthralling cricket and look favorites to reach the playoffs yet again.
Lucknow are placed at No. 4 on the points table with five wins and three losses from eight matches. Meanwhile, Rajasthan have been rampant and have kept a stranglehold on the pole position, having won seven and lost just one out of their eight games. The Super Giants are coming into this clash on the back of consecutive wins against defending champions Chennai Super Kings. In the most recent encounter, KL Rahul and Co. chased down a 211-run target with six wickets and three balls to spare on the back of Marcus Stoinis’ phenomenal century.
Rajasthan Royals (RR) have been the team to beat this year and they demonstrated their might with a comprehensive win against Mumbai Indians. Yashaswi Jaiswal has made a timely return to form with his superlative century against Mumbai while the bowling has been solid as always.
Rajasthan, on the other hand, have won their last three fixtures, the most recent one being against Mumbai Indians in Jaipur. Yashaswi Jaiswal’s breathtaking century helped the first-ever IPL champions to chase down a 180-run target with nine wickets and eight balls to spare.
LSG vs RR Head to Head
RR 3 – 1 LSG. Winners in all of these games batted first. Both teams were playing their first match of IPL 2024 when they met in Jaipur on March 24. An unbeaten 82 from Sanju Samson led Royals to a total of 193, and LSG were in the hunt thanks to half-centuries from KL Rahul and Nicholas Pooran. It came down to a gettable 65 from 36 balls with both of them at the crease, but a terrific end-overs display led by Sandeep Sharma sealed a 20-run win for Royals.
| Matches Played | 4 |
| Lucknow Super Giants Won | 1 |
| Rajasthan Royals won | 3 |
LSG vs RR Pitch Reports and conditions
Four games have been played so far at the Bharat Ratna Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Cricket Stadium in Lucknow in IPL 2024. The average first innings total has been 176. The pitches have been much better than what they were last year. Chasing teams and teams batting first have won two games each.
Last year, teams preferred batting first at this venue as the pitches slowed down considerably in the second innings. However, this year, the pitches have stayed relatively consistent throughout the 40 overs and that will give teams the option to bat second if they feel it is their stronger suit.
Not a run-fest? The game on Saturday will be played on one of the four black soil pitches at the venue. It’s the surface where LSG needed Ayush Badoni’s 35-ball 55 to recover from the precarious position of 94/7 in the defeat to DC.
Red soil or black soil It’s the question to ask in the lead-up to every game in Lucknow, and it’s a potentially tricky one for the home side ahead of this game. LSG love controlling games with their spinners on black-soil pitches, but Royals come here with one of the best spin attacks in the competition.
LSG vs RR Big picture
Form is a fickle thing in T20, but if there’s such a thing, LSG and RR are the two form teams of IPL 2024, the only two with two or more wins in a row leading up to their meeting in Lucknow. Both teams sit in the top four at the moment, and RR, who already have 14 points, could have one foot in the playoffs if they win on Saturday night.
This is a contest between broadly similar teams: both have strong top orders and occasionally get into a muddle with middle-order roles, and both have excellent attacks with plenty of variety. It’s hard to pick a favorite. LSG have won three of their four home games so far this season, but RR are perfectly equipped to compete on whatever surface Ekana throws up, whether it’s slow and low black soil or true, bouncy red.
Both teams are looking ominous if you go by the metric of key players finding form midway through the season. Yashaswi Jaiswal did so with a match-winning century in RR’s most recent game, against Mumbai Indians on April 22, and Marcus Stoinis matched him in LSG’s most recent game, against Chennai Super Kings on April 23.
Everything points to a tight and tactically interesting contest, and if you need anything else to whet your appetite, there’s the prospect of Mayank Yadav returning to action.
LSG vs RR Team news and impact player strategy
Sandeep Sharma returned from injury and took match-turning figures of 5 for 18 in RR’s last match, against Mumbai Indians. He is likely to keep his place and share the new ball with Trent Boult. If a black-soil pitch is rolled out in Lucknow, there is a chance Royals could bring in Keshav Maharaj as their third spinner.
In the spotlight LSG vs RR
Quinton de Kock has had a quiet IPL by his standards. He averages just 28.50 after eight innings, and while he’s made three fifties, all of them have come at strike rates below 145. LSG would love it if he found some of his old fluency, but the RR attack may present him a stern test: he has T20 strike rates of below 125 against all their key bowlers – Boult, Sandeep, Yuzvendra Chahal and R Ashwin.
He’s taken just one wicket in seven matches this season, at an average of 240.00, but R Ashwin will tell you (as he has on his YouTube channel) that wicket-taking is becoming irrelevant in T20. He may be right on one hand, since his economy rate (8.88) is nearly identical to that of Yuzvendra Chahal (8.83), who happens to have taken 13 wickets this season.
What is different and possibly worrying is that Ashwin hasn’t tied left-hand batters down to his usual extent: his economy rate of 8.68 against left-handers is his worst of any IPL season. LSG could have de Kock, Nicholas Pooran, Krunal Pandya and possibly Devdutt Padikkal in their top eight; can Ashwin dominate his favorite match-up like he’s done for so many years
Vital Stats that matters
- Royals have won three of their four matches against LSG so far. The two teams have never met in Lucknow, however.
- Mayank Yadav has the best middle-overs economy rate (5.00) and average (7.00) of any bowler in IPL 2024 (minimum 30 balls bowled in that phase).
- Sanju Samson is five hits away from becoming the 10th member of the 200 sixes club in the IPL.
LSG vs RR Probable Playing XIs:
Lucknow Super Giants:
Quinton de Kock, KL Rahul (c & wk.), Marcus Stoinis, Deepak Hooda, Nicholas Pooran, Ayush Badoni, Krunal Pandya, Matt Henry, Ravi Bishnoi, Mohsin Khan, Yash Thakur
Impact Substitute: Devdutt Padikkal
Rajasthan Royals:
Yashaswi Jaiswal, Jos Buttler, Sanju Samson (c & wk.), Riyan Parag, Dhruv Jurel, Ravichandran Ashwin, Shimron Hetmyer, Rovman Powell, Trent Boult, Avesh Khan, Yuzvendra Chahal
Impact Substitute: Sandeep Sharma
LSG vs RR Fantasy XI : Quinton de Kock, KL Rahul (c & wk.), Marcus Stoinis, Nicholas Pooran, Yashaswi Jaiswal, Jos Buttler, Sanju Samson (c & wk.), Riyan Parag, Trent Boult, Yuzvendra Chahal, Sandeep Sharma.
Probable Best Players of the Match
Probable Best Batter:
Yashaswi Jaiswal had been having a dismal run in IPL 2024 but that ended in the last game, as he slammed an unbeaten 104 off 60 balls in the last game against Mumbai in Jaipur, belting nine fours and seven sixes. In his young competitive cricket career, the southpaw has shown the ability to scores a lot of runs when he is in form and is high on confidence. His remarkable knock against Mumbai must have boosted his morale and there is a good chance of him continuing from where he left when he steps out to face LSG.
Probable Best Bowler:
Yuzvendra Chahal will enjoy bowling on the Ekana surface. The pitch might not have been as favorable for the spinners as it was last year but there is enough in it to keep them interested. Chahal has been in prolific form, having picked up 13 wickets from eight games at an average of 20.38. His four overs will be key for the Royals.
LSG vs RR Match Prediction
Scenario 1
Lucknow Super Giants win the toss and bowl
Power Play score – 50-60
First Innings Score – 165-175
Lucknow Super Giants win the match
Scenario 2
Rajasthan Royals win the toss and bowl
Power Play score – 45-55
First Innings Score – 160-170
Rajasthan Royals win the match