Rahul vs MI in 2022: 2 matches, 2 centuries, 2 wins

The Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) defeated the Mumbai Indians (MI) in the thirty-seventh game of the 2022 Indian Premier League (IPL). The match was played in the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai. Kananur Lokesh Rahul was adjudged to be the Man of the Match.

Mumbai, is that you?

For a while, it appeared as if the Super Giants and Mumbai had switched shirts. The Super Giants' batters were scarcely able to score as the hosts' bowlers put on a performance we hadn't seen in the competition so far. After seeing Quinton de Kock get a life at deep backward square leg, Jasprit Bumrah dismissed him for 10 on the very next ball, and Riley Meredith and Jaydev Unadkat suffocated Kananur Lokesh Rahul and the No. 3, Manish Pandey. Rohit Sharma had also bravely handed the second over to rookie Hrithik Shokeen, whose flat offbreaks conceded just four runs.

The Super Giants might not have reached 32 for 1 at the end of the field limitations if it hadn't been for Rahul's back-to-back fours in the third over off Daniel Sams.

Rahul's outstanding performance against Mumbai continues

After the powerplay, Rahul single-handedly increased the run rate to above six. Despite wickets falling all around him, he kept picking boundaries to keep the run rate from falling below seven. He led his squad to a respectable score all by himself.

Manish Pandey was out for a run-a-ball 22, Marcus Stoinis came out at No. 4 but was caught at deep midwicket for a duck, Krunal Pandya was dismissed for 1 by a Kieron Pollard cutter, and Deepak Hooda and Ayush Badoni were also dismissed for low scores while attempting to accumulate late runs.

During this time, Rahul did something no Mumbai batter had ever done before: he batted deep. Before going off against the fast bowlers, he got to 29 off 30 balls. He got off with a six over midwicket off a slower Unadkat delivery. Then came back-to-back fours against Meredith - a pull and a cut. Rahul stormed away to a 37-ball fifty, despite Bumrah's best efforts - which is par for the type in the IPL.

The biggest over for the Super Giants was the 13th, bowled by Sams, which featured two sixes from Rahul and five wides, but Sams also grabbed the key wicket of Stoinis with a slower one.

When Sharma slipped in two quiet overs of Pollard's cutters, Pandya fell two balls after, but Rahul seemed unaffected. He went after Bumrah again after 16 overs, sitting deep in the crease for the yorkers and collecting two fours, one over point and the other past cover.

Bumrah delivered an excellent 19th over, repeatedly hitting the blockhole, but Rahul raced to 94 with three fours in a row off Unadkat, then smashed Meredith for two sixes in the final over for his 61-ball century, his second of the season, third against Mumbai, and fourth overall in IPL cricket.

He went undefeated with a score of 103, controlling 85 percent of his shots, and - despite having to score almost 61 percent of Super Giants' runs on his own - it was eventually enough.

Mumbai, that's you

Ishan Kishan, on the other hand, batted his way to 3 off 12 before falling for 8 off 20 when he bottom-edged Ravi Bishnoi to de Kock's foot and the ball was ballooned to Holder at slip.

Dewald Brevis found third man off left-arm quick Mohsin Khan for 3 and his captain paid the price for a wild slog sweep against Pandya. 

With the score at 58 for 3, this brought Suryakumar Yadav and Tilak Varma together. Rahul then handed the ball to Badoni, who had never bowled in a Twenty20 match before. Yadav, who mistimed a whip to cover, was bowled by the offspinner's second delivery, and neither Rahul, who took the catch, nor the Wankhede audience could believe what had happened.

Pollard and Varma put up a 57-run stand in which Varma hit Bishnoi for massive sixes and Holder for back-to-back fours, but Mumbai's chances were further harmed when he mistimed Holder to deep midwicket. Pollard was on a run-a-ball 17, and Dushmantha Chameera's 19th over, which was packed with wide yorkers and only yielded five runs, pretty much sealed the match.