Chennai: Marcus Stoinis made a bustling unbeaten hundred, a perfect anti-thesis to Ruturaj Gaikwad's classy century to shepherd Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) to a stunning six-wicket win over Chennai Super Kings (CSK) in their IPL match here on Tuesday.
Stoinis (124, 63b, 13x4, 6x6) helped LSG mount the highest successful chase at Chepauk in IPL, ending up at 213/4.
LSG also scored a rare back-to-back home and away win over CSK as they had won by eight wickets at Ekana Stadium a few days back.
Stoinis' innings was in direct contrast to the silken smooth knock of Gaikwad.
The Australian's 6'1 inch frame is a storehouse of power and he made no effort to hide it too, crunching some fours and sixes, and nothing was more special than his maximum off pacer Mustafizur Rahman, who had earlier consumed LSG skipper K L Rahul cheaply.
Mustafizur pitched an off-cutter slightly fuller on the off-stump from over the wicket, but Stoinis produced a straight crunch over the bowlers' head for a six.
At the other end, Nicholas Pooran was on overdrive from ball one, partly because of the linear 55-run stand between Stoinis and a struggling Devdutt Padikkal (13, 19b), whose misery was ended when Matheesha Pathirana produced a 151 kmph scorcher to uproot the batter's leg stump.
It mandated that Pooran, who added 70 with Stoinis, did not have the luxury of taking his time to settle in, but he was up to the task and smoked Shardul Thakur for 20 runs in the 16th over including two sixes and a four.
Pooran's dismissal by pacer Pathirana left the task of taking LSG home to Stoinis, who and Deepak Hooda reduced the equation robbing 15 runs off the 19th over bowled by the Lankan.
Stoinis needed to take 17 runs off the last over bowled by Mustafizur and did the job with three balls to spare, smashing the Bangladesh left-arm medium-pacer for 6, 4, 4 (+1NB) and 4.
Earlier, Gaikwad and Shivam Dube gave steam to Super Kings innings after a rather subdued Power Play (49/2) and the middle passage to take them to 210/4.
CSK should primarily thank Gaikwad, who played an innings which was a connoisseur's delight, for that total after the early departure of Ajinkya Rahane, who was caught superbly by Rahul off Matt Henry.
The batting in this iteration of the IPL has been all about scorching the ball far and wide but Gaikwad took a classic route, timing the ball through the gaps for fours. The fifty came off just 28 balls.
The most spectacular shot that Gaikwad played on the night was a slice-cut off pacer Mohsin Khan that beat the point fielder for a boundary.
However, his focus was also on constructing useful alliances with his teammates as 45 runs were made with Daryl Mitchell and 52 were made alongside Ravindra Jadeja (17).
While Gaikwad was the main contributor in those partnerships, the pressure was slightly lifted off his shoulders once Dube arrived at the crease.
The left-hander played some powerful hits around the field and, not so surprisingly, fetched CSK's first six of the innings in the 13th over off Stoinis.
Gaikwad soon slammed the first six of his innings in the 45th ball he faced pulling Stoinis' half-tracker over mid-wicket.
However, Dube seamlessly slipped into his six-hitting avatar and pacer Yash Thakur bore the brunt as the left-hander smashed him for three successive sixes.
Gaikwad, who reached 99 with a six off Thakur over extra cover, reached his second IPL hundred with a four in the next ball off the same bowler as he made 16 runs in the 18th over.
Gaikwad and Dube brought up 100 of their partnership in just 46 balls.
