De Kock, Pooran and Krunal propel LSG to 199
The West Indian leads the team in place of ‘Impact Player’ Rahul who opens the innings but fails to get going; Curran stifles and strikes with equal felicity to finish with three for 28
he opening scene here on Saturday night was a bit of a surprise.
Out came Nicholas Pooran for the toss for Lucknow Super Giants against Punjab Kings at the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Stadium, and announced that the regular captain K.L. Rahul would play as an Impact Player. Soon, Rahul walked out to open the innings with Quinton de Kock, and he looked in imperious touch: the straight six he hit off Arshdeep Singh was one of the shots of this IPL so far.
TSplendid strokes
At the other end, de Kock was also unleashing some splendid strokes, as the host was off to a rapid start.
But the opening stand ended at 35, as Rahul was caught at backward point by Jonny Bairstow off Arshdeep, who got his revenge after being hit for that six earlier in the over.
De Kock seemed determined to take the innings deep. He may not have quite been able to do it, as he fell in the 14th over.
His 38ball 54 (5x4, 2x6), Pooran’s 42 (21b, 3x4 3x6) and Krunal Pandya’s 43 not out (22b, 4x4, 2x6) helped LSG, which chose to bat first, make 199 for eight, the highest total in an IPL game at this venue. The previous best was LSG’s 193 for six against Delhi Capitals last year.
Earlier, Devdutt Padikkal, who began with two successive boundaries on the off side against Kagiso Rabada, gave a catch to the Kings captain Shikkhar Dhawan at midoff off the bowling of Curran.
And then Marcus Stoinis, after hitting two backtoback sixes off Rahul Chahar, was cleaned up by the legspinner.
Good partnership
At 78 for three, LSG needed a good partnership which was provided by de Kock and Pooran, as they added 47 for the fourth wicket. Both were back in the dugout within a space of a couple of overs, but Krunal ensured that his team would end up with a competitive total on a wicket that looked better than the one from last year.
Harshal Patel was taken for 20 runs in the 18th over. The last two overs weren’t as productive, but the LSG teammanagement may not have been too unhappy with the score.