On Wednesday (May 8), the 57th Indian Premier League match between Lucknow Super Giants and Sunrisers Hyderabad took place at Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Hyderabad where LSG won the toss and opted to bat. LSG posted 165 runs for the loss of four wickets in their 20 overs. In response, SRH chased down the target in just 9.4 overs with 10 wickets in hand.
After opting to bat first, none of the LSG batters, apart from Ayush Badoni (55 off 30) and Nicholas Pooran (48 off 26), showed any intent. Their skipper KL Rahul could only score 29 runs off 33 balls while Quinton de Kock and Marcus Stoinis got out early. On the contrary, the SRH openers Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma got off to a brilliant start as they amassed 107 runs in powerplay unlike LSG who couldn’t even go past the 50-run mark.
Matthew Hayden, former Australian player, blamed the LSG batters for their lack of intent during their innings. He said that the Super Giants required someone to show intent with the bat while highlighting that they didn’t score enough runs in the powerplay. "I have to call them out. This is not 5 runs per over wicket. Somebody needed to show intent. They had one of the slowest powerplays. That took the innings nowhere. When the opposition team has Travis Head, Heinrich Klaasen your intention should be to go at 10s and over. 160-170 will never be enough," Hayden said.
After the match, LSG skipper KL Rahul was at loss of words and he also appreciated the SRH batters, Head and Abhishek, saying, “Kudos to their skills. They have worked hard on their six hitting skills. They didn't give us a chance to know what the pitch played in the second innings.
"It was hard to stop them as they teed off from ball one. Once you are on the losing side, there are question marks on the decisions taken. We were 40-50 runs short. When we lost wickets in the powerplay, we couldn't get any momentum. Ayush and Nicky batted well to get us to 166. But even if we would have got 240, they could have chased it as well."
