By Prakash Nair 
Lucknow, May 7: Nobody believed them. Not the pundits, not the algorithms, not the 60 percent win probability that sat next to RCB’s name when the evening began. Six losses in a row. Bottom of the table. A captain whose season had become more soap opera than sport. A franchise that had not beaten RCB at this ground in IPL history.
And yet.
LSG beat RCB by 9 runs tonight at Ekana a result that felt impossible at 7:30 when the toss happened, felt inevitable by the 12th over of the first innings when Mitchell Marsh was somewhere in the vicinity of 80 off 35 balls, and felt desperately nerve-wracking again in the final three overs when Rajat Patidar was threatening to drag RCB over the line through sheer individual brilliance.
LSG finished on 209 for 3 in 19 overs. Rain intervened multiple times through the night, lopped an over off each innings, and recalculated RCB’s target to 213 under DLS. They ended on 203 for 6. Nine runs short. Six-match losing streak over.
Lucknow had won a cricket match. Ekana lost its mind.
Marsh Walked Out and Took the Game Away
Let’s start where the match was decided, because it was decided early and it was decided emphatically.
Mitchell Marsh walked to the crease in the first over, took guard, and then proceeded to treat one of the most dangerous bowling attacks in this IPL like a throwdown session in the nets. He was 30 off 13 balls inside four overs. Four sixes already by the time LSG reached 39 for 0. Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Josh Hazlewood, Rasikh Dar all of them tried, none of them had an answer.
The fifty came off just 20 deliveries, inside the sixth over, the milestone arrived with two towering sixes off Rasikh Dar in consecutive deliveries. The crowd the same crowd that had been sitting on their hands through six consecutive home and away defeats suddenly found their voice.
Rain came. Players walked off. Covers went on. Nobody cared, because Marsh came back and picked up exactly where he left off.
By the time the third rain interruption arrived, Marsh was on 107 not out off 51 balls, with Nicholas Pooran keeping him company at the other end. A century. On a surface that was supposed to keep first-innings scores under 165. Against a bowling lineup that had dismantled Delhi Capitals for 75 just ten days ago.
He eventually fell for 111 off 55 balls, caught at deep extra cover off Hazlewood in the 17th over. By then, the match was already fundamentally different from the one either side had planned for. LSG had the kind of total DLS-adjusted to 213 for RCB that even this RCB batting lineup would find uncomfortable against a bowling attack suddenly operating with the confidence of a side that believes.
Pant then came in and hit 32 off 10 balls in the final flourish. LSG plundered 64 runs in the last five overs after the final rain break. The captain, the man who has been written about more for his off-field troubles than his cricket this season, was not letting this night slip away quietly.
Prince Yadav Bowled Kohli for a Duck
RCB needed 213 off 114 balls. Steep, but not impossible for a side with Kohli and Patidar.
They did not get Kohli. Not really.
Mohammed Shami drew first blood in the first over Bethell drove at a beautiful outswinger, the ball took a leading edge, and Prince Yadav took a tumbling catch at the deep point boundary. Bethell gone for 3. RCB 9 for 1.
Then came the second over. Prince Yadav to Kohli. What followed was, quite genuinely, one of the deliveries of this IPL season.
Hard length, jagging back sharply off the surface. Kohli poked tentatively outside the line, only to watch the ball whistle past the inside edge and crash into middle and off stump. Kohli bowled. First ball. For zero. His first duck in the IPL since 2023.
The Ekana crowd a crowd that has spent years watching this man take apart their bowlers roared in a way that suggested they were not entirely sure what had just happened. RCB were 9 for 2 in the second over. Chasing 213.
That delivery effectively decided the match. Everything that came after was RCB fighting the tide sometimes brilliantly, ultimately unsuccessfully.
Patidar Gave It Everything
Credit where it is due. Rajat Patidar did not give up. He rarely does.
He found the surface to his liking once the spinners came on, attacking Digvesh Rathi with a ferocity that briefly made the impossible look possible 23 runs in a single Rathi over at one point, striking at 383 in that spell alone. His half-century arrived off 26 balls, dispatched over midwicket for six off Mayank Yadav.
For a while, with Patidar and Devdutt Padikkal batting together, RCB were in it. The asking rate was steep but the boundary count was rising and the crowd that had been celebrating was suddenly nervous again.
Then Shahbaz Ahmed arrived in the attack and removed Patidar for 61. That was that. The game’s back was broken at that moment, even if nobody quite admitted it yet.
Prince Yadav then got Patidar’s partner a split-finger delivery that caught Padikkal on the return catch and then came back to surprise Jitesh Sharma with bounce, the top-edge settling safely into Pant’s gloves behind the stumps. Three wickets for Prince Yadav. RCB at 107 for 4 in the 11th over, needing 80 off five.
Tim David launched two enormous sixes. That brought some hope. Then he cut hard to backward point and found Digvesh Singh Rathi’s hands off Shahbaz Ahmed. Six down. Match gone.
RCB finished on 203 for 6. Nine runs short of where they needed to be. In a season where every run and every point matters as sides jostle for playoff positions, those nine runs are going to sting.
What Just Happened to This LSG Season
Three weeks ago, Lucknow walked off at Chinnaswamy having been bowled out for 146, watched Kohli score 40 off 20 as an Impact sub and make the chase look laughable, and flew home to begin what everyone assumed was the quiet closing chapter of their IPL 2026 campaign.
Then they lost three more. Six in a row. The questions about Pant intensified. The ownership conversations became public. The combination changes became desperate. At various points this week, it was genuinely difficult to argue that LSG were a competitive IPL franchise.
Tonight, Mitchell Marsh hit a century off 51 balls. Prince Yadav bowled Virat Kohli for a duck. Rishabh Pant smashed 32 off 10 at the death and kept wicket well enough to take a crucial stumping. Shahbaz Ahmed and Digvesh Rathi bowled with discipline under pressure when RCB were threatening to chase the total down.
This team this exact same team that had lost six in a row showed up tonight and beat the defending champions.
The playoff math still does not look great. Win percentage required from here is brutal. But tonight was never only about the math. It was about a side remembering what they were capable of. It was about Pant, specifically, being allowed one evening where his cricket did the talking instead of everything else.
For RCB, the table still looks fine. They drop a place or two, they dust themselves off, they move on. The defeat will concern the coaching staff a 9 for 2 inside two overs in a DLS chase is a shocking start by any standard but the structural quality of this squad is not in question.
For LSG, tonight was something else entirely. It was a reminder. Not to opponents to themselves.
They can still play cricket. Good cricket. The kind that beats defending champions on their own ground in front of a crowd that had almost stopped believing.
For one night in Lucknow, they made everyone believe again.
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- Prakash Nair
- Prakash Nair
- Prakash Nair
- Prakash Nair
