Rains played spoilsport as the 45th match of TATA IPL 2023 between Lucknow Super Giants and the Chennai Super Kings was abandoned with 19.2 overs bowled in the first innings at the Bharat Ratna Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Cricket Stadium in Lucknow. Consistent rains made sure that the match didn't start post the 19.2 overs and the teams were forced to share a point each.

LSG had reached 125/7 thanks to a brilliant innings under pressure from Ayush Badoni (59* off 33) who led the home team's revival after they were reduced to 44/5 inside 10 overs. For CSK, Moeen Ali, Maheesh Theekshana and Matheesha Pathirana all chipped in with two wickets each while Ravindra Jadeja picked up one wicket to put in a disciplined bowling performance.

Earlier, Chennai Super Kings captain MS Dhoni won the toss and elected to bowl. They made one change to the starting XI as Deepak Chahar replaced Akash Singh. They named Ambati Rayudu, Mitchell Santner, Subhranshu Senapati, Shaik Rasheed and Akash Singh as their substitutes.

For Lucknow Super Giants, Krunal Pandya was leading the side in place of the injured KL Rahul. They made four changes to the starting eleven as Manan Vohra, Karan Sharma, Ayush Badoni and Mohsin Khan replaced KL Rahul, Deepak Hooda, Yash Thakur and Amit Mishra. Yash Thakur, Daniel Sams, Prerak Mankad, Deepak Hooda and Quinton de Kock made it to their substitutes list.

The Chennai Super Kings bowlers started off well, bowled with discipline and didn't give the LSG openers much. Deepak Chahar bowled an excellent first over to start off with a good mix of inswingers and outswingers. The CSK pacers gave away just two fours in the first three overs. MS Dhoni then introduced spin into the attack as early as the fourth over and the move combined with the pressure worked as Moeen Ali had Kyle Mayers (14 off 17) caught at long off.

Spin struck again two overs later as Maheesh Theekshana cleaned up Manan Vohra (10 off 11), who shuffled way across and missed his swipe to see the stumps shattered, and he then had Krunal Pandya caught at first slip where Ajinkya Rahane pulled off a brilliant low catch. Marcus Stoinis swept the hat-trick ball for four as LSG hobbled to 31/3 at the end of the Powerplay.

Ravindra Jadeja then joined the wicket-taking party as he cleaned up Marcus Stoinis (6 off 4) with an absolute peach which left the LSG batter perplexed and stunned. It pitched outside the leg stump and hit the top of off. Another one walked back to the hut as Moeen pulled off a brilliant reflex caught and bowled to dismiss Karan Sharma (9 off 16) as LSG reached 44/5 at the halfway mark. Moeen finished an excellent spell of 4-0-13-2 in which he didn't concede a single boundary.

CSK kept a tight leash on the scoring and it was Ayush Badoni who broke the shackles in the 15th over, heaving one over deep mid-wicket for the first six of the innings and taking 11 from the over. Badoni and Pooran took 10 from the next over by Matheesha Pathirana.

Badoni then took on Theekshana, cracking a six and a four to accumulate 15 from the over as the fifty-run stand came up from 44 balls. However, against the run of play, Pathirana struck to have Pooran (20 off 31) caught at extra cover.

CSK brought on Ambti Rayudu as their Impact Player, replacing Theekshana in the 18th over. Badoni thought went from strength to strength and brought up his fifty with a four and a thumping six over deep mid-wicket off Chahar and then followed up with another thumping six over extra cover to make it 20 off the penultimate over.

Pathirana had K Gowtham caught at long on off the second ball of the final over before rain gods interrupted play. The rains didn't relent and in the end, they forced the match to be abandoned. LSG had reached 125/7 from 19.2 overs with Badoni unbeaten on 59 off 33 balls.