Indian Premier League 2024: Lucknow Super Giants beat Punjab Kings

Lucknow: Lucknow Super Giants registered their first victory in Indian Premier League 2024 as they beat Punjab Kings by 21 runs here at the Ekana Cricket Stadium on Saturday night.

After scoring huge 199 runs on board, the hosts restricted Punjab Kings at 165 in allotted overs. Punjab opening duo started positively in chase. Both put on 102 runs in 11.4 overs before Jonny Bairstow went back after scoring 42 runs from 29 balls. Captain Shikhar Dhawan hit magnificent 70 runs from 50 balls. But no other batter could contribute at the middle order. Finally they managed 178 runs losing 5 wickets. Spinner Mayank Yadav claimed 3 wickets from 27 runs.

Earlier, Krunal Pandya's late fire of 43 in 22 deliveries after Quinton de Kock's 54 and Nicholas Pooran 42, guided Lucknow Super Giants to 199 for 8 in 20 overs.

Electing to bat first, LSG had a good start as both the opener KL Rahul and Quinton de Kock added 35 runs on the board in the first four overs. Rahul, who played as an impact sub rather than captaining the side, fell prey to Arshdeep Singh after banging a six and a boundary in his over.

Singh with a full delivery outside off then got rid of Rahul for 15 after he handed an easy catch to Jonny Bairstow fielding in the backward point.

Devdutt Padikkal playing his second match for LSG got out to Sam Curran on nine runs pulling the length ball straight into the hands of captain Shikhar Dhawan. However, de Kock on the other hand continued playing his attacking short down the ground with Marcus Stoinis joining him at number four. LSG finished their powerplay with 54 runs on the board losing two wickets.

Stoinis hammered back-to-back sixes before getting out to Rahul Chahar on the very next delivery. In pursuit of the third six of the over Stoinis went to pull the shot of length delivery on the wicket line and got knocked off, missing the ball.

At 78 for 3 in the ninth over, in walked the captain Nicolas Pooran. Soon the spinners were taken off from the attack and the pacers came back. De Kock with his elegant bat flow collected boundaries from the overs of Harshal Patel and Kagiso Rabada.

Chahar came back into the attack and Pooran on the strike showed him why he was taken away from the attack. Pooran smashed 16 runs in the first three deliveries of Chahar and collected twenty runs in the whole over. De Kock soon reached his half-century off 34 balls with a strike-rate of 150. De Kock scored five fours and two sixes in his innings before he got out immediately on 54, trying to hit Arshdeep Singh for a six and getting a top edge.

Pooran continued his striking ability and collected 11 runs from Singh’s over. Rabada bowling his last over of his spell got rid of dangerous Pooran courtesy of a paced bouncer angling back on the body. Pooran scored 42 off 21 deliveries with a strike rate of 200.

However, the show stealer with the bat was left-arm orthodox spinner Krunal Pandya, who took the responsibility of ending LSG’s inning with good runs on the scoreboard. Pandya hammered 18 runs off Patel's second last over and took Lucknow over 170.

LSG collected 65 runs in the last five overs which propelled them to 199 for 8 in their twenty overs which is now the highest score of Ekana Cricket Stadium in the IPL. For Punjab, Sam Curran was productive with the ball as he scalped three wickets giving away 28 runs. Arshdeep Singh got two, Rabada and Chahar shared a wicket each. IANS

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