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Pandya Sr. lifts Lucknow Super Giants to second successive home win
An all-round show from Krunal Pandya (3 for 18 & 34 off 23) helped Lucknow Super Giants beat SunRisers Hyderabad by five wickets and bring up their second consecutive win at their home ground. For SRH, the back to back losses keeps them rooted to the bottom of the points table.
Krunal Pandya registered his second best IPL figures and it was his introduction in the third over of the innings that turned things around for LSG, who had hitherto seen runs scored off pace. His first wicket of the night was Mayank Agarwal, who mistimed a chip straight to cover. The mode of dismissal, commonly seen on slow-low pitches, was a bellwether for what was to come. And for Krunal, that was two wickets in an over after he changed ends. The well-set Anmolpreet Singh was trapped on the back leg by an arm ball whereas Aiden Markram, in his first game as SRH captain, was bowled by a delivery that just straightened a touch.
Despite Rahul Tripathi’s 35 off 41, it could have been much worse for SRH after opting to bat. But Samad, walking in at No.7, picked couple of sixes off Jaydev Unadkat in the last over and finished on 21* off 10 balls, thus taking SRH to something they could look to defend. Until then, it looked like SRH would struggle to get to 110 because the troika of spinners had kept them tied down. Krunal stood out but Amit Mishra (2 for 23) and Ravi Bishnoi (1 for 16) weren’t too far behind.
An innings at a strike-rate of nearly 148 on a pitch where Washington Sundar struggled for his 28-ball 16, the second slowest by a SRH batter. Walking out to bat in the seventh over, Krunal got going with a cover drive off Markram before launching Adil Rashid for a six over long-on. There were a couple of boundaries against Umran Malik too before the pacer had him caught behind.
The LSG captain scored 35 off 31 balls and was involved in a 55-run stand with Krunal for the third wicket. Rahul looked set to take his side over the line but Adil Rashid put paid to that, defeating his reverse-sweep with a legbreak before trapping Romario Shepherd with the googly next ball. But LSG had enough of a headstart and chased the target down with four overs to spare.
Brief scores:
SunRisers Hyderabad 121/8 (Tripathi 35; Krunal 3-18) lost to Lucknow Super Giants 127/5 in 16 overs (Rahul 35, Krunal 34; Rashid 2-23) by 5 wickets