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After suffering a 10-wicket loss with 62 balls remaining against Sunrisers Hyderabad in the IPL 2024, the Lucknow Super Giants slipped to sixth place in the points table with their NRR taking a massive hit. With that, LSG have found themselves in a tough spot to make the IPL playoffs for the third time in a row, needing other results to go in their favour.
In their previous match at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Hyderabad, the captain of the Lucknow Super Giants, KL Rahul, won the toss and chose to bat first. They were far from fluent with the bat in the first half of their innings, but an exceptional partnership of 99 runs for the fifth wicket from Ayush Badoni and Nicholas Pooran, helped them to reach 165/4 in their allotted overs.
The run chase from SRH was an exhibition of power hitting from their openers Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma, who overhauled the 166-run target in just 9.4 overs of their innings.
With that, the Lucknow Super Giants are in sixth place in the IPL 2024 points table, with six wins in 12 matches, adding up to 12 points, but with an NRR of (-0.769). For qualification through to the IPL playoffs, a team has to reach at least 16 points with a very good NRR, which has been the case in the last couple of seasons.
However, only two matches are remaining for the Lucknow Super Giants in the IPL 2024 league stage, which will happen against Delhi Capitals and Mumbai Indians on their away trips. So, LSG have to win these two matches to reach a maximum of 16 points on the IPL standings, while trying to improve their NRR substantially.
Following this, they will have to hope for two of the top five teams in the IPL 2024 standings, including names like KKR, RR, SRH, CSK, and DC, to have a disastrous last few matches in their respective campaigns, which could open a spot for them in the top four. Ultimately, LSG needs to focus on winning their remaining matches in the IPL, and the other results might fall in their favour.
