Hyderabad, Mar 28: Lucknow Super Giants registered a comfortable five-wicket win over Sunrisers Hyderabad in their IPL match here on Thursday.
Opting to bowl, Shardul Thakurās four-wicket haul helped LSG restrict SRH to 190/9.
Nicholas Pooran then smashed a blistering 26-ball 70, while opener Mitchell Marsh chipped in with a 31-ball 52, guiding the visitors to a chase of 193/5 in just 16.1 overs.
Pat Cummins (2/29) and Mohammed Shami (1/37) were among the wicket-takers for SRH.
Travis Head top-scored for SRH with a 28-ball 47, while Nitish Kumar Reddy (32), Heinrich Klaasen (26), and Aniket Verma (36) made useful contributions for SRH.
For LSG, Shardul (4/34) was the standout bowler, with Avesh Khan (1/45), Digvesh Rathi (1/40), Prince Yadav (1/29), and Ravi Bishnoi (1/42) taking a wicket each.
Shardul Thakur | Player of the Match: (On whether he thought he would be playing in the IPL this season after not getting picked in the auction) Honestly, no but I had made my plans. I also planned to play county cricket if I was not picked in the IPL. Zaheer Khan had called me when I was playing in the Ranji Trophy and he told me that you may be called in as a potential replacement so don’t switch yourself off. If you are called in as a replacement, you are likely to start. Ups and downs are a part of life. I have always backed my skills. Some swing and what I have seen in the past, Head and Abhishek love to take their chances so I thought I will take my chances as well. New ball is a thing where you can take wickets when it’s swinging and I took my chances tonight. Bowlers get very little in these kinds of matches, even in the last game I said that pitches should be prepared in a way the game especially hangs in the balance. With the impact sub rule coming in, it’s unfair on the bowlers if a team scores 240-250 runs.
Rishabh Pant: Big relief but as a team we talk about the process. It’s not about getting too high when you win and not about getting too low when you lose. As a team, we can’t focus on uncontrollables, my mentor said focus on controllables and that is what I did. Good to see the way Prince bowled and also Thakur was really good. (On Pooran batting at No. 3) I think we just want to give freedom to him. You got to give someone the charge when he is batting well and he has batted brilliantly for us. The group is coming up nicely, we haven’t played our best so far but happy to get a win.
Pat Cummins: It was a different wicket the other day, but we had to score quickly. They batted really well though. Still a very good wicket, that was the best wicket in the world, this was the second-best wicket. It gripped a little bit, but it was a nice wicket. Every time it’s a fresh game, they bowled really well, it was very well planned. It was a pretty good effort to get to 190. You always need one person to bat throughout the innings, like Ishan (Kishan) did the other day, but they bowled really well, never let us off the hook. We got 8 batters, it’s about going out there and making an impact. You see things you could have done better, that could have been the difference. It’s a long competition, we will get a chance pretty quickly, so we need to move on.