At one end, Josh Inglis was struggling. "I felt like I was batting with a stump tonight," was his post-match verdict.
At the other, Mitchell Marsh batted in a way that made you wonder if he would have done just as well with a stump in hand. If everything's pinging off the middle of the bat, why do you need all that extra surface area?
Inglis scored 36 off 32 balls, and his innings gave an accurate picture of the conditions in Lucknow. This was an unusual pitch for the IPL, with the ball climbing steeply from a hard length, with occasional bits of sideways nibble. It's almost a cliche for a surface like this to get likened to a Perth pitch, but you believe it when a Western Australian makes the comparison himself, as Inglis did in his post-match interview.
The Western Australian at the other end felt right at home. Marsh scored 90 off 38 balls, and rose so far above the conditions that he almost seemed to break the rules of the contest. At the halfway point, it felt as if Chennai Super Kings (CSK) had posted a comfortably above-par total. Their captain Ruturaj Gaikwad said after the match that they had been looking at something in the region of 160-170. They ended with 187.
On a normal day, that might have been more than enough. But Marsh happened, and Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) won with 20 balls to spare.
Now Marsh brings certain strengths that come with the terroir of Western Australia. His horizontal-bat shots are among the most punishing in the world game, and you only have to err marginally on the shorter side to get pulled or slapped to the square boundary. His pull is particularly remorseless; with his upright, 6'4" frame and high backlift, he gets on top of the bounce easier than most, and from there he can pull along the ground or in the air as he pleases. Typically it's the latter, with a baseball-style hip-twist generating immense power.
And Marsh, of course, can also use his height and reach to devastating effect to pummel the ball down the ground even when it isn't necessarily in the slot.
He's less certain on slower, grippier pitches that challenge the smooth, practiced flow of his bat and call for a little more wrist and subtlety, but this Lucknow pitch wasn't like that. It may have been tricky in other respects, but it provided plenty of pace onto the bat.
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You can have all of Marsh's bouncy-pitch strengths, bat exceptionally well, and still not score at the absurd rate he did on Friday. The three other openers who batted on the night - Inglis, Sanju Samson and Ruturaj Gaikwad - scored 69 off 61 balls between them. Marsh, it is worth repeating, scored 90 off 38.
This innings was about Marsh harnessing all his strengths to their maximum, but there was more to it. He didn't just put away marginal errors better than anyone else; he also forced bowlers into more frequent error.
And the key tactic that helped him do this was how well he used his feet to the fast bowlers. As per ESPNcricinfo's data, no batter has scored more runs while stepping out to fast bowlers in any innings in IPL 2026 than Marsh's 30 in this innings. And those 30 runs came off just six balls.
Anshul Kamboj, one of the best bowlers of IPL 2026, conceded 63 runs in 2.4 overs against LSG
For the record, Abhishek Sharma is in both second (26 off eight balls during his 29-ball 57 against Rajasthan Royals) and third place (24 off 12 during his unbeaten 68-ball 135 against Delhi Capitals).
Marsh's forays down the track against CSK weren't as frequent as Abhishek's tend to be. But as that strike rate of 500.00 suggests, they were incredibly efficient. He was able to leave the crease and attack different lengths and target different parts of the ground. He was able to step out, make room and slap or carve good-length balls square on the off side, along the ground or over the ropes. He was able to step out well in advance of the bowler's release, make him shorten his length, and pull the ball over square leg. He was able to step out and loft inside-out over square cover. He was able to step out and across to the off side to get close to the attempted wide line and drill it through extra-cover.
Imagine running up to bowl to Marsh when you have seen him do these things. He gives you precious little margin for error even when he's standing still, so how much more likely are you to err if this big, physical, 6'4" presence is also shortening, widening or narrowing the pitch from time to time, and making you second-guess yourself?
On a day like this, the most consistent of line-and-length bowlers can fall to pieces, like Anshul Kamboj did as Marsh took him for 6, 6, 6, 6, dot, 4 in the fifth over of LSG's innings.
Kamboj is the kind of bowler who can settle into a suffocating length and make life really difficult for a batter on a pitch like this one, if you allow him to do so. Marsh was in no mood to allow anyone to bowl how they wanted.
Mitchell Marsh led LSG to victory over CSK with an innings of 90 in just 38 balls
Another Western Australian, the CSK batting coach Michael Hussey, provided an excellent insight into Marsh's methods in his post-match press conference.
"I feel like with Mitch Marsh in particular, the margin for error is very small," Hussey said. "Because he's such a big guy, you just drop a little bit short, and he can play that beautiful pull shot. You're just a little bit too full, and he'll hit you down the ground or over cover as we saw today. The bowler's always trying to adjust to which batsman they're bowling to. And he was in that frame of mind where he almost had nothing to lose. He could come out and actually take a few chances.
"He actually said to me after the match that it's the sort of pitch where if you just try and bat properly, it can be hard. Whereas if you just take a few risks and things come off, then it's difficult to bowl to.
"And look, he did say that earlier in the season, we [LSG's top order] tried to play similar and we were like two or three wickets down early, in the powerplay, every game. But for them tonight, he was able to get through that initial period and really score quickly and unfortunately take the game away from us."
Marsh's chat with Hussey revealed not just the thinking behind this innings, but how much acceptance of failure top-drawer T20 batters need to have to keep playing in this high-wire way through a season. Marsh's late-season surge may have come a little too late to salvage LSG's tournament, but it's a reminder of how dangerous he remains at 34, and how valuable an asset come IPL 2027.