Cricket Indian Premier League Prediction

Punjab Kings vs Lucknow Super Giants - Match Preview

🏏 28 April 2023 - 18:00 GMT +0

Friday evening’s IPL action sees Punjab Kings (PBKS) host Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) in match 38. The two sides have both picked up four wins from their seven games and a victory in this fixture will take one of them to ten points and in a position to challenge for the top. This game gets underway less than a fortnight since they last played each other, with Punjab Kings winning a tight contest by two wickets with three balls remaining in Lucknow.

PBKS come into this match looking to register their third win from four games and they beat Mumbai Indians by 13 runs in their last fixture. Stand-in skipper Sam Curran top scored for the Kings with 55 runs from 29 balls, equalling his highest IPL score, but it is hoped that Shikhar Dhawan will return from his shoulder injury to take on Lucknow. Dhawan has struck 233 runs from four innings in the 2023 IPL and brings the experience of 210 IPL appearances to the team.

With the ball, Arshdeep Singh took four wickets against Mumbai Indians and in doing so went past his tally of ten wickets from last year’s tournament and past 50 wickets across his IPL career. His 13 dismissals in this campaign have come at an average of 15.69 and a strike rate of 11.54. He picked up the wicket of KL Rahul in the reverse fixture and he has conceded only 17 runs from 18 balls to the Lucknow skipper across his IPL career.

LSG have stumbled a little over recent games and are looking to avoid their third defeat from their last four matches. They were on the receiving end of a narrow seven-run defeat against Gujarat Titans on Saturday but will still be wondering how they managed to lose that game when chasing only 136 to win. With three overs remaining, their win probability was at 97% and with 12 balls to go it was 93%. Losing a game from that position could be disastrous for their batting confidence and it will be interesting to see how they react in this clash.

Skipper KL Rahul had a slow start to the tournament but is averaging 60.33 from his last three innings and hit 74 from 56 balls in the last game with Punjab Kings. Kyle Mayers is his opening partner and the left-hander has amassed 243 runs across the 2023 IPL. The West Indian hit three sixes in the match against the Kings earlier in the month and has a top score of 73 in this campaign.

After missing the last two games, LSG will be hoping that Mark Wood is fit to play. It was announced earlier this week that the England pace bowler will miss the final stages of this year’s IPL to return for the birth of his daughter so the team will be keen to get as much action from him before he departs. He has an extraordinary strike rate of 8.72, with 11 wickets from 16 overs, and he is the only bowler to have produced a five-wicket haul in this competition so far.

This is only the third match between the sides, but the first in Mohali, with the current head-to-head score of 1-1. The average first innings score at the IS Bindra Stadium is 173, marginally under the tournament average of 179. Cloud cover is forecasted for Friday evening with the humidity levels expected to reach 50% in the second innings. These conditions could well play into the hands of Punjab Kings’ swing bowlers Arshdeep Singh and Sam Curran.

⚡ Players to watch: Arshdeep Singh has taken at least one wicket in each of his seven appearances so far in the 2023 IPL and his figures of 4-29 against Mumbai Indians are his second best across his IPL career. He has taken five wickets with a strike rate of 13.20 at the IS Bindra Stadium in the 2023 IPL.

Although his season average of 37.43 is his worst since the 2015 campaign, KL Rahul is still the seventh-highest run-scorer in this year’s competition. He is a remarkably consistent player in the IPL and he has top-scored, for Lucknow and the opponents, in three of the last five games.

📋 Stat attack: Punjab Kings have had a different top run scorer in each of their last five matches.

• Sam Curran took 3-31 in his first match as skipper but has gone wicketless in his last two matches leading Punjab Kings.
• Only bottom of the table Delhi Capitals have lost more wickets than Punjab Kings’ average of 7.43 in the 2023 IPL.
• Lucknow Super Giants have the best bowling economy rate of 8.12 across this year’s competition.
• In 11 innings at the IS Bindra Stadium, Shikhar Dhawan has produced a strike rate of over 145 on only one occasion.
• After not bowling in his previous six IPL appearances, Marcus Stoinis has taken two wickets in both of his last two matches.
• Sam Curran has bowled 50 balls to KL Rahul in professional white ball cricket for just one wicket (1/48).