LSG vs DC, IPL 2023 Highlights: Mark Wood takes five as Lucknow Super Giants beat Delhi Capitals by 50 runs

That is extraordinary, Kyle Mayers giving catching practice to Khaleel Ahmed and the latter fails miserably. If he had done that in training he might have lost his place in the team altogether. Will be hard to see more extraordinary drops than this one this season and yet, despite DC's utterly horrendous fielding, LSG are still on 28/1 after 5.4 overs! Slow bouncer on off from Sakariya, Mayers waits for it and than tries a cut over short third man. He instead ends up nicely lobbing it to the fielder there, who is Khaleel, the way the fielding coach might lob balls up in the nets for the fielders to practice. It all happens in slow motion, the ball loops up, Khaleel underneath it, and it pops out of his hands. That is garbage that helps no one.

Sakariya lays out the trap and Rahul takes the bait. Slower ball, back of a length on the legs. Rahul flicks it to backward square leg where Axar takes the easy catch.

Rahul c Patel b Sakariya 8 (12), LSG 19/1 in 4 overs

Chetan Sakariya bowling the third and Rahul sends the second ball of the over flying over long on for the first six of the night. How LSG need more of those!

Short and on the pads from Khaleel, Mayers pulls it through square leg for the first boundary of the match. 

Back to back misfields off the last two balls of the 2nd over allowed the batters to run two off both. Then they run one off the first ball of the third because the DC wicketkeeper, whom is Sarfaraz Khan, fumbles the collection.

A rather sedate start to the innings here. Mukesh Kumar gives away five in the second over. Rovman Powell, who is mic'ed up today, says that he didn't like the look of this pitch, seemed like something that could be slow. The last T20 match to be played here was between India and Australia and it was as slow a T20 game as it gets. 

Very tidy first over there from Khaleel Ahmed. Rahul took a single off the first ball and Mayers was then pinned to the crease by the Indian pacer. 

Right, it's become a rainy mess in Mohali but in Lucknow, the two teams are ready to go. DC were out first, which as Sunil Gavaskar says, shows intent. Khaleel Ahmed opens the bowling for them, KL Rahul facing the first ball with Kyle Mayers at the other end. 

KL Rahul(c), Kyle Mayers, Marcus Stoinis, Deepak Hooda, Krunal Pandya, Nicholas Pooran(w), Ayush Badoni, Mark Wood, Jaydev Unadkat, Ravi Bishnoi, Avesh Khan

David Warner(c), Prithvi Shaw, Mitchell Marsh, Rilee Rossouw, Sarfaraz Khan(w), Rovman Powell, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Chetan Sakariya, Khaleel Ahmed, Mukesh Kumar

“That's how most IPL teams work. They want to make their home ground their fortress. We're as clueless as the opposition. We haven't played here. We're going in with no expectations. For all you know, it might be a good batting wicket. It's new (impact player). Still getting used to it. It gives teams a chance to be in the game or come back in the game. It's fun. Hopefully it's a good change.”

“Going to have a bowl. For us it's about trying to assess conditions early and knowing what to chase. It can be quite confusing, maybe stressful at times (impact player). I'm excited to be back. We send our best out to Rishabh.”

DC win the toss and choose to field

Here is Ian Bishop with the pitch report. "65 meters to my left, 62 to my right. And it will need a good thump down the ground at 77 meters. Importantly, the 22-yards is interesting because there's very little grass at this end. It's very bare and the ball may grip on this half. As I walk down, you can see the disparity. You get to the middle, you start seeing more grass, and it's patchy as well. So it's a pitch with contrasting halves. There's so much more grass on one side, but it's patchy grass. So when it hits the bald areas, it could hold. Hoping that the red soil makes the bounce and carry."

South Africa's ODI series against Netherlands gets over with the last match tomorrow and both sides are without their Proteas stars because of that. LSG are without Quinton de Kock. DC, on the other hand, don't have pacers Anrich Nortje and Lungi Ngidi today.

Warner was one of the first, and few, foreign players to have come to their national selectors' reckoning through the IPL. He made a splash in his early years playing for the Delhi Daredevils under the captaincy of Virender Sehwag. So good was he that he became the first Australian in 132 years to make his international debut without playing any first class cricket. He has since admitted that he followed the Sehwag playbook, which thus made him one of the first names on the team sheet for Australia in all formats, including Test cricket despite his aggressive approach to batting. He left the Daredevils and led Sunrisers Hyderabad to the IPL title in 2016. He was absolutely devastating as SRH captain, never scoring less than 500 runs between 2015 and 2020 but it all came to a rather unceremonious end in 2021 when he was stripped of his captaincy and axed from the team. He returned to Delhi, now called the Delhi Capitals and is now captain of the side with Pant sidelined. Talk about full circles. 

Right, the match today is being hosted by Lucknow at the Ekana Stadium. Teams batting first have won five of the six T20s played here. It was in the last match that a team batting second won and India captain Hardik Pandya had said that the pitch was a shocker. 

DC coach Ricky Ponting gave his two cents on who he thinks can be the toughest to beat this season. "Obviously, Gujarat (Titans) last year was amazing, a brand new team, and they were able to win the tournament. The other finalist last year, the Rajasthan Royals, have, in my opinion, a really, really good squad. And we said that last year, immediately after the auction, we were pretty impressed with what they were able to do and put a good squad together," Ponting said when asked about the favourites for the title this year.

"They’ve only built on that again this year. I think Rajasthan will be there, thereabouts. It’s a hard game to judge, and it's a hard game to understand who’s going to win. Those who stand up in the moment will generally win more often than not. But if I’m looking at the squads, Rajasthan has got a good squad as anybody," he added.

This is what one of the greatest international and IPL captains of all time had to say about the new rule: “It’s a luxury to have (Impact Player). It becomes slightly easy to take the decision because you can use it at any time. Influence of all-rounder has become slightly less because of the rule." 

Pant's tweet brings us nicely to the impact player rule. In the match between PBKS and DC, Rishi Dhawan has been brought on as an impact player replacement for Bhanuka Rajapaksa. Yesterday, CSK brought on Tushar Deshpande as replacement for Ambati Rayudu so it is pretty clear that the teams batting first are using the rule to bring on an extra bowler. GT showed the other way the rule can be used, they didn't have to bat with a batter less due to the injury to Kane Williamson. Not that Sai Sudharshan was expected to be an equal to the Kiwi great but the Indian did a very good job of holding up fort and was crucial to GT's win.

“I am 13th player coz of impact rule otherwise would have been 12th man,” says Rishabh Pant in a reply to a tweet from DC in which they are asking fans to guess their XI. Oh, how Pant must be itching to go right now. 

In T20 cricket, Bishnoi has taken the wicket of Warner three times in six balls. So it will be an interesting battle to watch! Bishnoi has also removed Powell four times in 34 balls.

Last season, LSG had a shaky middle order, which proved to be costly. So for this season, they purchased Pooran for ₹16 crores to strengthen their middle order. He adds to the wicketkeeping options too!

The Kings are facing the Knight Riders today and the former are batting first. They maintianed a run rate of over 10 for much of their innings but they now have two new batters in Sikandar Raza and Sam Curran in the last five overs. CSK were going at a good click yesterday before they lost momentum in the end and ended up losing the match. PBKS are currently going on an eerily similar form.