Sikandar the great
Lucknow, April 15
Sikandar Raza slammed his maiden IPL fifty after an impressive show by his side’s bowling unit as Punjab Kings beat Lucknow Super Giants by two wickets in a last-over finish here today.
Invited to bat, captain KL Rahul smashed his first fifty of the season but Punjab roared back with timely wickets to restrict Lucknow to 159/8.
Chasing 160 for a win, Zimbabwean Raza, who also picked a wicket with his spin bowling, cracked a 41-ball 57 to keep Punjab in the hunt after Matthew Short’s 22-ball 34. Raza hit four boundaries and three sixes in his match-winning knock.
Once he was holed out in the 18th over off Ravi Bishnoi, Shahrukh Khan (23 not out) completed the job, knocking off the winning runs with a boundary.
On a two-paced wicket, KL Rahul displayed great composure en route his 56-ball 74 as he added 53 and 48 runs with Kyle Mayers (29) and Krunal Pandya (18) for the first and third wickets, respectively. However, Lucknow couldn’t finish things with a flourish as they lost four wickets for 48 runs in the last five overs, with Sam Curran picking up three. Kagiso Rabada (2/34), Arshdeep Singh (1/22), Harpreet Brar (1/10) and Raza (1/19) were the other wicket-takers.
Defending the total, pacer Yudhvir Singh made a sensational debut, dismissing fellow debutant Atharva Taide (0) and Prabhsimran Singh (4) — who replaced Rahul Chahar as Impact sub — in his first two overs to reduce Punjab to 17/2. Short looked in good touch, slamming three boundaries off Avesh Khan before producing two hits to the fence off Yudhvir.
Krishnappa Gowtham, who replaced Kyle Mayers as Impact sub, too, was smacked for a six by Short but the spinner had the batter caught by Stoinis as Punjab slumped to 45/3 in 6 overs.
Raza then took the onus on himself as he and Harpreet Singh Bhatia (22) added run-a-ball 30 before Krunal Pandya broke the stand, holing out the former at deep backward square. Raza exploded in the 13th over, clobbering two successive sixes and a four off Pandya to pile up 17 runs.
Brief scores:
Lucknow Super Giants: 159/8 in 20 overs (Rahul 74; Curran 3/31);
Punjab Kings: 161/8 in 19.3 overs (Raza 57; Yudhvir 2/19, Bishnoi 2/18). — PTI
‘I think we were about 10 runs short towards the end. The dew came in and it seemed to help the batters a little bit more. We did not execute well with the ball. We take it as it comes, assess it on the go and not really set ourselves a target’
‘It is one of the biggest stages and now that you are here, you want to do well. I had average games (prior to tonight) so that was the emotion I was carrying as well but it was important to channelise it’
Sikandar Raza, player of the match
KL Rahul, lsg captain
