WATCH: Suryakumar Yadav's Hilarious Mid-flight 'Lemon Prank' Leaves a Sleepy Tilak Varma All Confused

Mumbai Indians players were in a jolly mood after their thumping 81-run win over Lucknow Super Giants in the Eliminator of the 2023 Indian Premier League (IPL) at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai on Wednesday.

As MI flew out for Ahmedabad, where they will take on defending champion Gujarat Titans on Friday in IPL 2023 Qualifier 2 for a chance to book their place in the final against Chennai Super Kings, Suryakumar Yadav tried a prank on Tilak Verma.

SKY took lemon slices from the inflight crew and decided to squirt some of the juice right into a sleeping Tilak’s mouth. The young batter startled awake and looked bemused to the amusement of the onboard passengers, including the MI players and staff.

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Madhwal’s brilliant bowling, including Akash Madhwal’s astonishing figures of 5-5, and three bizarre run-outs saw Lucknow get bowled out for 101 with more than three overs to spare as Australian Marcus Stoinis top-scored with 40.

Mumbai, which won the toss and elected to bat in the knockout game, scored 182-8 with Cameron Green (41) and Suryakumar Yadav (33) dominating the first half of the innings. Impact player Nehal Wadhera smashed two fours and two sixes in his cameo of 23 off 12 balls in the death overs to give Mumbai an above-par total on a slow wicket.

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Lucknow’s decision to leave out opening batter Quinton de Kock from the crunch game backfired as its impact player Kyle Mayers (18) holed out at long on within the powerplay after Madhwal had struck with his fifth ball by having Prerak Mankad (3) caught at third man.

Captain Krunal Pandya struggled for 11 deliveries before he too played a rash shot and skied a catch at long-on against leg-spinner Piyush Chawla as Lucknow slumped to 69-3 in the ninth over.

Madhwal dealt the final blow to Lucknow’s chase in the next over when he clean-bowled Ayush Badoni and found the edge of Nicholas Pooran off the next delivery.

Stoinis, who was watching wickets falling from the other end, then got run out when he couldn’t make it at the striker’s end for the second run after a mid-wicket collision with Deepak Hooda.

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Two smart pieces of ground fielding by Green earned Mumbai two more run-outs of Krishnappa Gowtham and Hooda before Madhwal sealed the game with a perfect yorker to clean bowled No. 11 batter Mohsin Khan.

Earlier, Green and Yadav combined in a 66-run stand before Afghanistan fast bowler Naveen-ul-Haq (4-38) and Yash Thakur (3-34) pegged back Mumbai.

Sharma and Ishan Kishan fell against Naveen and Thakur inside the batting powerplay before Naveen returned and claimed two vital wickets in his return spell.

Yadav got deceived by Naveen’s slower leg-cutter and holed out at long-on and Green was also outdone by another slower delivery from Afghan fast bowler and got clean bowled. Tim David laboured to score run-a-ball before he was dismissed off a contentious high full toss of Thakur in the 17th over but Wadhera ensured Mumbai got to a challenging total with his quickfire knock.

(With inputs from Agencies)