The Lucknow Super Giants had just lost the wicket of key man Nicholas Pooran when their captain Rishabh Pant walked in. It was the seventh over and the Giants were not too badly placed at 60/2, chasing a stiff target of 216 against the Mumbai Indians in Mumbai on Sunday.

Pant has been around in top-level cricket for quite a long time now. He has seen it all. But despite all his experiences, it seems the keeper-batter has learnt little, still playing unusually wrong shots at the wrong time. And that happens too often for the comfort of the teams he plays for.

With Aiden Markram and Pooran already dismissed, Pant, coming in to bat No. 4, had to be responsible in what looked like a tough and tricky chase. But Pant chose to be foolish.

Off the very first ball he faced, Pant picked up a boundary with a cut through the first slip off part-time spinner Will Jacks. Off the very next ball, Pant chose to play the reverse sweep.

Still young at the crease, it was certainly not the right time to play that shot. Neither was it the right delivery for such a shot. Pant’s pre-meditated effort against fullish length ball resulted in a silly lob to short third man. The Giants deserve better from their ₹27 crore player.

As Karn Sharma completed the catch, the Mumbai players were ecstatic. They perhaps knew that the match was sealed. The Giants never really recovered thereafter, though Ayush Badoni (35 off 22) and David Miller (24 off 16) put up brief resistances.

All out for 161, they lost the match by 54 runs.

Total domination

The defeat left the Giants stranded on 10 points after 10 games, but for Mumbai, it was their fifth straight win in the campaign. What a turnaround it has been for Hardik Pandya’s team. They began the season with four losses from their first five games, but now have six wins to sit in third place in the standings.

It was a complete show from the five-time champions. Asked to bat first, they never looked in doubt of their abilities even after losing Rohit Sharma in the third over of the innings.

Ryan Rickelton, the left-handed batter from South Africa, continued his impressive run with an authoritative innings of 58 off 32 balls, which included four sixes. With clean hits, the 28-year-old took his season aggregate to 273 runs at a healthy average of 30.33 and a strike rate above 150.

Then there was Suryakumar Yadav, flaunting his extravagant strokeplay as he racked up 54 off 28 balls. This was Surya’s third fifty of the edition. He is now second on the run-scorers’ list with a total of 427. Only Virat Kohli, with 443 runs, is ahead of him. Surya also crossed the 4000-run mark in IPL.

With a late charge by Naman Dhir and Corbin Bosch, Mumbai comfortably posted a 200-plus total to put the Giants under pressure.

Then the Mumbai bowlers stepped up. Jasprit Bumrah led the show with four wickets, but pace colleague Trent Boult wasn’t far behind with three scalps. Jacks, who also scored 29 runs, picked up two wickets with his spin.