Mumbai : Lucknow Super Giants defeated Punjab Kings by 20 runs in a low scoring Indian Premier League match here on Friday. Put to bat, opener Quinton de Kock scored a 46 off 37 balls, while Deepak Hooda pitched in with a crucial 34 to take LSG to 153 for 8. In reply, Punjab Kings could only manage 133 for 8.
Young pacer Mohsin Khan starred with the ball for LSG, snaring three wickets while Krunal Pandya bowled an excellent spell of 2/11. For Punjab, pace spearhead Kagiso Rabada was the pick of the bowlers, the South African bagged four wickets, including LSG skipper KL Rahulâs.
Krunal Pandya, Man of the Match, said, ‘I have been bowling well. For the last 7-8 months, I have been working hard. Special mention to Rahul Sanghvi. The results everyone can see as I have tried to improve skillwise. Lot of times when you are playing shorter formats you don’t realise a lot of things. I have been trying to increase my height with my release and some things on my grip. I took Rahul Sanghvi’s help and it has worked. Batting is slightly close to my heart. I haven’t been contributing much with the bat but it is a long tournament and going forward I will look to contribute with the bat.’
KL Rahul, Winning captain, said, ‘ I was disappointed and fuming at the end of the first innings. Stupid cricket with the bat. It does happen but we did talk about it at the time-out. We did talk that we can defend 160 as this wasn’t a great pitch. The crucial runs at the back end and then the execution with the ball helped us win. We need to get better with the bat. Half-time, when Quinny and Deepak were batting they paced it really really well to get to 60 in 9 overs on a tricky wicket. Had we batted smartly, we could have gotten to 180-190.
The way we responded with the ball was phenomenal. Krunal has been brilliant throughout the tournament. This season he has really worked on his bowling. Bowling economically is important but he has been giving us two three wickets in the middle overs. Bishnoi is an aggressive bowler. We are fine with him going for a few fours and sixes looking to go for wickets. I think we just need to be smarter in reading the game. If we could have not played too many shots we could have done better. We have been good on the field and good with the ball. Just need to keep repeating the good things’.
Mayank Agarwal, Losing captain, said, ‘I think we just kept losing wickets. We had batsmen who were set and we kept getting out. So many soft dismissals for us. It is disappointing and we have to face the truth. We didn’t bat well enough and we were below par with the bat. The new ball was doing a bit, seaming around and there was some bounce, it was a crucial period and after that it did get better to bat on. We are bowling exceedingly well and doing a lot of right things as a bowling unit. Arshdeep has stepped up, Rahul got wickets and KG being the big guy is always stepping up and getting us important wickets.’
Quinton de Kock, said, ‘Bit of a surprise to be honest. We didn’t quite have the total we wanted to, but the guys bowled really well. We have got a lot to thank them for. They bowled really well, it’s great to have that sort of bowling line-up with us at the moment. Couple of bombs there by Mohsin at the end, it’s great to see, but it’s not his job to be doing it. It’s us, that’s our job. But to do it, didn’t really want to put that type of responsibility on him.
Congrats to him, he had a great game. I am at ease, we play so much, just got to keep soldiering on. That’s just what I am focusing on at the moment. Just trying to take it game by game.’