Before the match, many expected Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) to post the first 300-plus total in the IPL. There were reasons to speculate that. SRH had posted 286 for 6 in their previous game, also in Hyderabad, and Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) were without at least two of their first-choice bowlers.
Forget 300, SRH could not even score 200. They managed only 190 for 9 with Shardul Thakur picking up 4 for 34, his best figures in the IPL.
Still, 190 was not a small total, but Nicholas Pooran made it look minuscule. He smashed 70 off just 26 balls, hitting six fours and as many sixes on the way. By the time Pat Cummins had him lbw, LSG needed only 71 from 68 balls.
Mitchell Marsh, who was playing second fiddle to Pooran, also scored a fifty before Abdul Samad applied the finishing touches.
LSG chasing down their target with 23 balls and five wickets to spare was giving SRH a taste of their own medicine. Last season, Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma had taken just 9.4 overs to chase down LSG’s 165 at this very venue.
LSG knew the only way to stop the marauding SRH batting unit was to take early wickets. Shardul went in search of swing in the first over but did not find success. But in his next over, he dismissed Abhishek and Ishan Kishan off successive balls. Abhishek pulled a short ball into the hands of deep square leg, and Kishan was caught down the leg side.
Head went after the returning Avesh Khan, hitting him for two sixes and a four in the fourth over. Two overs later, he tried to take on Ravi Bishnoi but ended up skying a slog sweep. Pooran, though, put the chance down at long-on. Four balls later, Bishnoi failed to latch on to a tough return catch.
Head was on 35 at the time of the first drop but it cost LSG only 12 as Prince Yadav made a mess of Head’s stumps for his first wicket in the IPL.
Nitish Kumar Reddy and Heinrich Klaasen took SRH past 100 in the 11th over before Klaasen was run out in a bizarre fashion. Nitish hit a full toss from Prince to the bowler’s left. Prince failed to hold on to the catch but the ball found a way to ricochet onto the stumps at the non-striker’s end with Klaasen well outside his crease. Soon after, Bishnoi castled Nitish for 32 off 28, leaving SRH in a spot of bother.
In keeping with the team ethos, the SRH batters kept attacking. But while they kept hitting sixes, they also kept getting out. Aniket Verma smashed Bishnoi for two back-to-back sixes and repeated it against Digvesh Rathi in the following over before getting out for 36 off 13 balls. Cummins walked in at No. 8, hit the first three balls he faced for three sixes, and was out on the fourth. That took SRH to 180 for 8 after 18 overs. However, only ten runs came from the last two.
Mohammed Shami removed Aiden Markram in the second over of the chase but Pooran took the attack to the opposition. His first boundary came via a misfield before he smoked Simarjeet Singh over deep midwicket twice in two balls.
Bringing on a left-arm orthodox spinner with Pooran in the middle is always risky. But Cummins took that gamble with Abhishek. Pooran faced only two balls from him and slog-swept both for sixes. He has now hit seven sixes off nine balls against Abhishek in T20 cricket.
He didn’t spare Adam Zampa either, hitting him for two sixes and a four in the seventh over. Off the first 20 balls he faced, he hit five fours and six sixes.
Marsh was on 37 off 22 balls when Pooran got out. He had hit Shami for two straight sixes in the powerplay. In the 11th over, he hit Cummins for back-to-back fours to bring up his fifty off 29 balls. Cummins had him caught at long-on soon after but it was too late.
At the end of 11 overs, LSG needed only 53. They did lose Rishabh Pant and Ayush Badoni along the way but their victory was never in doubt. Samad, a former SRH player, smashed an unbeaten 22 off eight balls to complete the formalities.
Brief scores:
Lucknow Super Giants 193 for 5 in 16.1 overs (Nicholas Pooran 70, Mitchell Marsh 52, Rishabh Punt 15, David Miler 13*, Abdul Samad 22*; Mohammed Shami 1-37, Pat Cummins 2-29, Adam Zampa 1-46, Harshal Patel 1-48) beat Sunrisers Hyderabad 190 for 9 in 20 overs (Travis Head 47, Aniket Verma 36, Nitish Kumar Reddy 32, Heinrich Klassen 26, Pat Cummins 18, Harshal Patel 12*; Shardul Thakur 4-34, Avesh Khan 1-45, Digvesh Rathi 1-40, Ravi Bishnoi 1-42, Prince Yadav 1-29) by five wickets
[Cricinfo]
