Pacer Avesh Khan  picked up four wickets against SRH
Pacer Avesh Khan picked up four wickets against SRH

Bowlers deliver for Lucknow

Pacers Avesh & Holder hold nerves at death overs to help team beat Hyderabad by 12 runs

CHENNAI: Many fans believed that the 12th game of the Indian Premier League would be Lucknow Super Giants’ batting depth vs the Sunrisers Hyderabad’s bowling might which has a lot of variety.
Lucknow, with the likes of KL Rahul, Quinton de Kock, Manish Pandey, Evin Lewis, Deepak Hooda, Ayush Badoni, Krunal Pandya and Jason Holder, had a batting line-up which could be the envy of any side in the IPL. On the other hand Hyderabad with the likes of Washington Sundar, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Romario Shepherd, T Natarajan and Umran Malik have a good pace-centric attack.

In the end, though, the match came down to what Lucknow’s death over specialists could do against Hyderabad’s finishers. The latter’s power-hitters, especially Nicholas Pooran, threatened to chase down 170 but Jason Holder (3/34) and Avesh Khan (4/24) closed out the match to help Lucknow to a second win in three outings.

At one point, Lucknow, who were asked to bat first, were in danger of not making much but thanks to a gritty half-century from KL Rahul and a flowing 50 from Deepak Hooda, they set their opponents a tricky target of 170. After winning the toss, Kane Willamson took a leaf out of Virat Kohli’s book and the Kiwi was straightaway rewarded. Kohli was one of the few captains to have used Washington Sundar judiciously. Washington, when he was with RCB, had on numerous occasions opened the attack and made good use of the surface in order to get purchase.

On Monday, he immediately sent home the dangerous De Kock. With his guile, he induced the South African to play a false stroke straight to cover where Williamson made no mistake. In his next over, Washington trapped the inform Evin Lewis with a clever change of pace.

Williamson shuffled his bowlers well and all that Lucknow could mange in the power play was 32, losing three wickets in the bargain. Thereafter, Hyderabad lost the plot a bit in the middle overs as Shepherd, Natarajan and Malik were erratic and Rahul and Hooda combined well to add 87 runs for the fourth wicket.

The final overs where no way better as Washington conceded 17 in his fourth over. Although Natarajan did well to pick up two wickets to send back Rahul and Krunal Pandya, Shepherd one again messed up by conceding 17 runs in the final over which included three wides. Thus despite a poor start, Lucknow managed to post a challenging total.

Brief scores: LSG 169/7 in 20 ovs (Rahul 68, Hooda 51; Natarajan 2/26, Washington 2/28) bt SRH 157/9 in 20 ovs (Tripathi 44, Pooran 34; Avesh 4/24, Holder 3/34).

Related Stories

No stories found.
The New Indian Express
www.newindianexpress.com