Kolkata: After the aggressive half-century innings of Nicholas Pooran (58 runs in 30 balls), the spinners led by Ravi Bishnoi (two wickets for 23 runs in four overs) won the Lucknow Supergiants in the Indian Premier League T20 match on Saturday. Defeating Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) by one run in a very thrilling match here, they secured their place in the playoffs with the third position in the points table. Another fiery innings by Rinku Singh took KKR very close to the target but they could not find any support from the other end. Rinku scored an unbeaten 67 in 33 balls with the help of six fours and four sixes.
The team needed 41 runs in the last two overs to win, but even after Rinku’s aggressive innings, the team remained one run away from the target. Batting first, Lucknow Supergiants restricted KKR to 175 for seven after scoring 176 for eight. This is Lucknow’s eighth win in 14 matches and the team has secured the third position in the table with 17 points. With the same number of points, Chennai Super Kings are in second place with a better net run rate.
This is KKR’s eighth defeat in 14 matches. The team’s campaign ended with 12 points. Mumbai Indians, Royal Challengers Bangalore, and Rajasthan Royals are now left in the race for the fourth team in the playoffs. Apart from Rinku, only Jason Roy’s bat went for KKR. Roy shared a 61-run partnership with Venkatesh Iyer (24 off 15 balls) for the first wicket with 45 off 28 balls hitting seven fours and a six but the team could not take advantage of the good start.
For Lucknow, Krunal Pandya (30 runs in four overs) and Krishnappa Gautam (26 runs in four overs) also took one wicket each while bowling economically. The spinners of the team gave only 79 runs in 12 overs. Yash Thakur took two wickets for 31 runs in three overs.
Earlier, Puran hit four fours and five sixes in his innings and shared a 47-ball 74-run partnership with Ayush Badoni (25) for the sixth wicket to take the team to a big score. For the team, opener Quinton Dickock (28 off 27 balls) and Prerak Mankad (26 off 20 balls) added 41 runs for the second wicket. For KKR, Vaibhav Arora (30 runs in four overs), Sunil Narine (28 runs in four overs), and Shardul Thakur (27 runs in two overs) took two wickets each.
KKR started chasing the target aggressively. While Venkatesh hit two fours and a six against Mohsin Khan in the opening over, Roy did the same against Naveen-ul-Haq. Roy hit three consecutive fours against Krunal in the fifth over but Krishnappa Gautam ended Venkatesh’s 15-ball 24 in the sixth over. KKR’s score in the power play was 61 runs for one wicket. Ravi Bishnoi completed his 100 wickets in IPL by removing KKR captain Nitish Rana in the ninth over. In the next over, Krunal bowled Roy and gave the team a big success. Lucknow’s bowlers tightened the noose after this but Rinku eased the pressure in the 13th over by hitting a boundary against Bishnoi. In the same over, he dropped the catch of Rinku.
Krunal gave the ball to impact player Yash Thakur in the 14th over and the bowler justified his decision by picking up the wicket of Rahmanullah Gurbaz (10 runs) for just three runs. Bishnoi bowled Andre Russell (seven runs) after hitting a six in the 16th over to seal the match for Lucknow. Rinku hit a six against Yash in the 18th over but this bowler showed the way to the pavilion to Shardul (three runs).
Narayan (one run) was run out in the same over. The left-handed batsman added to the excitement in the match by hitting a hat-trick, four and a six against Naveen in the next over to complete his half-century in 27 balls. KKR needed 21 runs to win in the last over but Rinku failed to score runs in the second and third balls after coming on strike. The team needed 18 runs from the last three balls but could only hit sixes, fours and sixes against Yash.
Earlier, after playing cautiously in the first two overs, Dickock opened his hand in the third over with a six over Harshit Rana (one wicket for 21 runs in three overs), but this bowler did a brilliant job by dismissing Karan Sharma (three) in the same over. Returned. Dickock also hit a six against Vaibhav, while Mankad (26) hit three fours against Harshit and two fours against Varun Chakraborty (1/38 in four overs). The team’s score in the power play went up to 54 for one wicket. Vaibhav gave the team a big breakthrough in the next over by walking Mankad and Marcus Stoinis (0) inside two balls. Captain Krunal Pandya (nine) hit a six against Shardul but was caught in the spin of Narine in the 10th over.
Chakraborty got Dickock caught by Russell in the next over. Due to which KKR’s score went from 55 runs for one wicket to 73 runs for five wickets. However, it had no effect on Puran who came to the crease. After hitting Chakraborty for consecutive fours and sixes in this over, he welcomed this bowler with a six in the 13th over as well. While Ayush Badoni was playing cautiously from one end, Puran took an aggressive approach from the other end and hit a six and a four against Suyyash in the 15th over. KKR bowlers now focused on stopping runs but Badoni increased the run rate by hitting a four and a six against Narine in the 18th over.
However, he was caught by Shardul on the last ball of the over. In the next over, PuranHe hit sixes in consecutive balls against Dul and completed his half-century in 28 balls. However, he was caught by Venkatesh in an attempt to hit a hat-trick six on the third ball of the over. Shardul also bowled Ravi Bishnoi (two runs) in the same over. Krishnappa Gautam hit a six and a four against Andre Russell on the last two balls to take the team’s score to 175.
