England pacer Mark Wood announced himself with a record fifer against Delhi Capitals at Lucknow Super Giants' (LSG) home ground Ekana Cricket Stadium. Wood took five wickets for just 14 runs to help LSG win their IPL 2023 opening game against Delhi Capitals (DC) by 50 runs. Wood became the second English bowler to take a fifer in IPL 2023.
Before Wood, former England all-rounder Dimitri Mascarenhas took 5/25 for then-Kings XI Punjab against now-defunct Pune Warriors India in Mohali in 2012.
Wood's 5/14 is also the best bowling figures by a LSG bowler. The previous best belonged to uncapped Indian left-arm pacer Mohsin Khan who took 4/16 against DC at Wankhede Stadium last season.
The 33-year-old was introduced into the attack in the fifth over by skipper KL Rahul. He started off with the wicket of Prithvi Shaw who went for a drive but could not get his bat on time. Similarly, Mitchell Marsh went for the drive, missed the ball and got bowled. After taking two wickets in his first over, he took Sarfaraz Khan’s wicket in his first spell. Sarfaraz tried the uppercut but ended up getting caught at fine leg.
He was brought back into the attack to bowl the final over. On the first ball, he got the wicket of Axar Patel who got caught at deep square leg. He completed his fifer with the wicket of Chetan Sakariya who miscued the pull shot and got caught at mid-wicket.
This was Wood’s second IPL game. He made his IPL debut for Chennai Super Kings (CSK) in 2018. He conceded 49 runs from his quota of four overs.
The Englishman won the ‘Player of the match’ for turning the game upside down despite DC openers getting off to a good start.
“Last time I played for CSK, but it didn't go quite well. But I wanted to make an impact in his game. I am pleased with my rhythm as I managed to take wickets. We have trained here, so we knew dew was going to be a factor. Tried to keep things simple, the planning, Morne helped me. I was trying to keep my strides short,” he said in the post-match presentation ceremony.
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