Kolkata: Mukul Choudhary pulled a rabbit out of the hat, hitting seven sixes and two fours to help Lucknow Super Giants snatch a sensational three-wicket win against Kolkata Knight Riders at Eden Gardens on Thursday.
Coming in at 125/6 with the game nearly done, Choudhary scored a 27-ball 54. His 16-run assault against Cameron Green in the 19th over proved to be the turning point in LSG’s innings.
Set a target of 182, LSG got off to a quick start but KKR’s fast bowlers were smart in deploying a short-ball trap that the batters walked into. Sunil Narine and Anukul Roy then combined to concede only 45 runs in their eight overs while taking three middle and lower-order wickets, which nearly snuffed out any chance of a comeback for LSG. Badoni, however, kept LSG in the match with a 34-ball 54 before Choudhary engineered a stunning upset, steering the match away from KKR despite the equation reading: 30 runs needed off the last 12 balls.
An 84-run second wicket stand between Ajinkya Rahane (41 off 24 balls) and Angkrish Raghuvanshi (45 off 33) was the backbone of KKR’s innings, setting up what should have been a much better finish. But KKR lost a cluster of wickets in the middle overs, allowing LSG to slide back into reckoning with clever changes of pace, before picking up the scoring rate again in the death overs.
Two wickets in three balls made Vaibhav Arora cock-a-hoop and KKR hopeful of turning a corner when everything seemed smooth sailing for LSG with a 41-run opening stand. A short ball from Arora saw Aiden Markram go for a pull but he couldn’t get it past Rovman Powell at deep midwicket. Mitchell Marsh’s turn came a ball later, again trying to pull, he could only glove it to Raghuvanshi behind the wickets.
Something shifted with the wicket of Rishabh Pant coming from an unexpected source. Bowling for the first time in this IPL, Green banged in a ball that climbed up on Pant, who, despite not being in any position to pull, went ahead with the shot anyway. Swooping in from short fine leg, Kartik Tyagi completed the catch to leave LSG staring at an asking rate of over nine.
In Nicholas Pooran and Ayush Badoni, LSG had the ammunition to chase the target, especially with dew coming into effect. But by giving them no pace on the ball to work with, Narine was making life difficult. Navdeep Saini followed it up with an over of clever cutters and slower balls, and suddenly the asking rate pushed up beyond 10. Soon enough, Tyagi weighed in with—unsurprisingly—another short ball that got big on Pooran. Badoni, though, kept the chase alive when all had seemed lost for LSG.
The match was definitely lost in the last three overs but also in the second half of KKR’s innings. Thrice in succession Finn Allen wafted at Mohammad Shami’s outswinging deliveries, trying his best to edge but failing. An outside edge produced a relieving single but Allen was edgy as ever. Against Prince Yadav he got two boundaries but they were nearly not as convincing. Allen finally got one off the screws but Digvesh Rathi caught him at deep third man, though TV replays later seemed to suggest that he could have touched the skirting.
Not giving Shami a third over despite extracting multiple false shots for just 11 runs probably went against the momentum LSG had built up. First Rahane came down the track to lift M Siddharth over extra cover for a six, followed by a couple of boundaries off Rathi. Raghuvanshi then joined the party, upper cutting Avesh Khan for a four before flicking a straying down delivery for a six over deep extra cover. Khan returned, only to be carted for two more sixes by Raghuvanshi, boosting KKR’s score to 98/1 at the halfway mark.
This is where KKR started to wobble. First, Rahane pulled a half-tracker from Rathi to Shami at midwicket. Next over, Raghuvanshi too departed after picking Aiden Markram in the deep, leaving KKR with two new batters in the space of eight balls. The innings slowed down as a result, with Shami’s five-run over acting as the trigger. The pressure got to Rinku Singh, who tried to steer Khan late but got bowled instead. Rovman Powell joined Cameron Green but the next 10 balls yielded just four runs. The recovery was decent as KKR scored 65 runs in the last five overs but in the end it wasn’t enough to check LSG.
