CHENNAI: Quinton de Kock's classy 81 runs (56b, 8x4, 5x6) and Mayank Yadav's 3/14 came in handy for Lucknow Super Giants to beat Royal Challengers Bengaluru by 28 runs in the IPL game played at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium on Tuesday.Chasing 182 for a win, RCB had a tricky start with spinners M Siddharth and Krunal Pandya. Siddharth bowled a steady first over, while Krunal was a bit expensive. Siddharth was erratic in his second over and conceded a couple of boundaries, but he came back strongly to get rid of Virat Kohli. Known for his weakness against left-arm spinners, Siddharth capitalised on it. He bowled a slower one, drew Kohli into the big shot, but the ball turned away and caught the outer half. Kohli skied it to backward point and Devdutt Padikkal took the catch. Soon, Faf du Plessis ran himself out. With Mayank breathing fire, RCB batters one by one succumbed to his pace, bounce and carry. A late surge by Mahipal Lomror (33) entertained the RCB fans but could not alter the result.
Earlier, Lucknow had a good start with De Kock and captain KL Rahul going hammer and tongs on the RCB attack. De Kock was aggressive of the duo as he could pick the length early and carted all the RCB bowlers — be it Reece Topley, Yash Dayal, Moahmmed Siraj — all over the park. With De Kock in an aggressive mood, Rahul decided to give good support at the other end. However, Rahul failed to convert his start into a big score as he was done in by a change of pace (20 runs). Glenn Maxwell’s introduction did the trick for RCB as Rahul mis-timed a pull shot off the spinner and Mayank Dagar at covers completed the rest.
Meanwhile, De Kock went about his job in a professional manner. He struck Mayank Dagar for a four to the long-off fence and registered his 22nd IPL fifty. His six off Siraj was perhaps the shot of the evening. The South African whacked a short delivery outside off stump, by getting slightly closer to the ball, over mid-wicket. Despite the dismissal of Devdutt Padikkal and Marcus Stoinis, De Kock kept the innings going. When he looked set for a century, the South African failed to connect a full toss from Topley and Dagar completed the catch at long off. From thereon, Pooran took over. He farmed the strike, brought in the big hits, taking LSG to 181/5. Brief scores: LSG 181/5 in 20 ovs (de Kock 81; Maxwell 2/23) bt RCB 153 in 19.4 ovs (Lomror 33; Mayank 3/14).
