Lucknow Super Giants captain KL Rahul admitted that they were 10 runs short of a par-score but made up for it with the ball following their 10-run win against Rajasthan Royals at the Sawai Man Singh Stadium, Jaipur on Wednesday.
LSG managed a below-par score of 154 after Sanju Samson opened the batting. Rahul revealed that he and his opening partner – Kyle Mayers – realized that the pitch was not a 180-type track and thus took a calmer approach in the powerplay, reaching 37-0, the slowest score without losing a wicket. In the first six overs in IPL 2023.
However, after the powerplay, Mears and Rahul changed gears and added 82 runs for the opening stand. Marcus Stoinis scored 21 runs in 16 balls while Nicholas Pooran provided the finishing touch by scoring 29 runs in 20 balls.
RR, on the other hand, got off to a good start as Yashasvi Jaiswal and Jos Buttler added 87 runs but took 11.3 overs to score those runs. RR was derailed as they lost the next four wickets for 32 runs in five overs and could not keep up with the required run rate.
Barring Yudhvir Singh Charak, all the LSG bowlers were economical as they were right on the money. Avesh Khan took three wickets while Marcus Stoinis took two wickets to take his team forward and both collectively conceded 53 runs in eight overs.
“I got hit by one of my teammates’ throws, so clearly doing something wrong as captain,” KL Rahul said at the post-match presentation. 10 overs in, the message that was sent to me and Kyle Was that 160 would be a good total on this track, they have some good bowlers as well who took advantage of the conditions. We fell 10 runs short but made up for it with the ball. And there was no dew so it was fair to both the teams made.”
He further added, “We came here yesterday and saw that 180 would be a par score, but in Boult’s first over, myself and Kyle had a chat and realized it was not 180 wickets. The ball was keeping a bit low so we went for the powerplay.” Gave me time. Maybe if we had played a bit better, we would have got 170. I think the run-out of an impact player (Mishra) and a couple of wickets falling in back-to-back helped the opposition ( Their team) get a chance. We know their strength with Rajasthan is their top four, so we needed to plan ours to get them out.
Lucknow Super Giants will next take on Gujarat Titans at the Bharat Ratna Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Cricket Stadium, Lucknow on Saturday.