Lucknow, May 20: Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) have been eliminated from the IPL 2025 playoffs race as they lost to Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) by six wickets in Lucknow on Monday. LSG posted a total of 205/7 after being put into bat by SRH, with half-centuries from Aiden Markram and Mitchell Marsh. However, a swashbuckling 18-ball fifty along with healthy contributions by Heinrich Klaasen, Ishan Kishan and Kamindu Mendis helped SRH win with 10 balls to spare. It draws the curtain on a disapponting campaign for LSG captain Rishabh Pant, who became the most expensive player in IPL history when he was bought for Rs 27 crore in the auction.SRH were already out of contention for the playoffs when this match began, but they showed – even without Travis Head, who missed out after a bout of Covid-19 delayed his return to India, that they remain a batting line-up with an immense ceiling, even if the vagaries of form have ensured that they have only reached it sporadically this season.
Abhishek hit six sixes in a 20-ball 59, turning his team-mates’ task straightforward; with Ishan Kishan, Heinrich Klaasen and Kamindu Mendis also getting past 30, SRH reached their target with ten balls remaining.
LSG’s batting, yet again, was over-reliant on their big three, with Nicholas Pooran scoring 45 off 26 balls on the back of the openers’ half-centuries, and no one else reaching double figures. Having scored 108 for no loss in the first ten overs, LSG only managed 97 for 7 in the back half, as SRH’s bowlers pulled them back with their changes of pace.
Definitely it could have been one of our best seasons but coming into the tournament, we had a lot of gaps, injuries and as a team we decided to not talk about that, but it became difficult to fill those gaps for us. The way we planned the auction, if we had had the same bowling. But this is cricket, sometimes things go your way and sometimes they don’t, we take pride in the way we played and take the positives from the season than the negative side. We have a strong batting line up, have enough firepower and that is the biggest positive for the season, even for bowlers, a lot of times they bowled in good areas but they were patchy,” Pant said in the post-match presentation.