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Avesh Khan 4 for 24 Man of the Match
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Deepak Hooda, KL Rahul and Avesh Khan led the way as Lucknow Super Giants came back from behind with bat and ball to complete a 12-run win over Sunrisers Hyderabad, continuing the reversal of fortunes for teams batting first in IPL 2022.
Reduced to 27 for 3 after being sent in, Super Giants recovered to set a target of 170, and Avesh took two powerplay wickets to put them firmly in front. But Sunrisers took the initiative with quickfire knocks from Rahul Tripathi and Nicholas Pooran; at one stage, they needed 27 from 17 balls with six wickets in hand. But Avesh turned it around once again with two wickets in two balls in the 18th over, and two more solid death overs from Andrew Tye and Jason Holder, playing his first game of the season, completed the job.
Sunrisers didn’t open the bowling with Washington Sundar in their first match against Rajasthan Royals, but they had a clear case to do so against Super Giants. One of their openers, Quinton de Kock, was a left-hander, and the other, KL Rahul, has struggled to score quickly against offspin of late, his strike rate against that style of bowling dropping from 176.66 until the end of 2019.
Washington made an even bigger impact than Sunrisers may have hoped for. He dismissed de Kock by denying him room to hit inside-out, and took out another left-hander in Evin Lewis, who fell in the dangerous pursuit of sweeping every ball from a bowler who targets the stumps incessantly. With Rahul and Manish Pandey – another right-hander who starts slowly against spin – taking no chances against him either, Washington ended the powerplay with figures of 3-0-11-2.
Romario Shepherd’s hard lengths took out Pandey, meanwhile, after he had conceded a six and a four earlier in the over, and Super Giants finished the powerplay at 32 for 3.
Avesh Khan who finished with 4 for 24 was adjudged man of the match.
Chief scores
Lucknow Super Giants 169 for 7 (Rahul 68, Hooda 51, Natarajan 2-26, Washington 2-28, Shepherd 2-42)
Sunrisers Hyderabad 157 for 9 (Tripathi 44, Pooran 34, Avesh 4-24, Holder 3-34)
Wednesday, April 6, 2022 – 01:00
