The Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) produced a thrilling last-ball finish to chase down the target of 213 runs against Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023 match on Monday. First, it was Marcus Stoinis and then Nicholas Poroan who both scored half-centuries to play pivotal roles in their team’s triumph. However, questions were raised on skipper KL Rahul’s performance who only scored 18 runs off 20 balls, much to the disappointment of his fans.
If it wasn’t for Stoinis (65 off 30 balls) and Pooran (62 off 19 balls), the Super Giants would’ve ended on the losing side. None of the other batters managed to give a valuable contribution, including captain Rahul. After the game, however, Rahul explained why he decided to score runs at a slower pace.
“Unbelievable. This is the Chinnaswamy, only venue where so many last-ball finishes are possible. From the position we were in, to end up winning it, is superb. We had to go hard and the ball swung early, and they got 2-3 wickets to put the pressure on us. The only reason we got two points today is for the way the lower order batted,” Rahul admitted.
On the topic of his own strike-rate and contribution, the opening batter said: “Not ideal for me, I want to score more runs and get the strike rate up as well. We’ve played on two tough Lucknow wickets, and today we lost 3 wickets so I went slower. I wanted to stay till the end and play with Nicky. Batting 5 ,6, 7 is the toughest positions to play and that’s where games are won and lost. We know about the power in Marcus and Nicky, and Ayush has come along as well. He’s played 2-3 knocks last year, and he’s continued to perform well for us.”
With the win, Lucknow have gone top of the IPL 2023 standings, with 3 wins in their first four matches. The Bengaluru side, on the other hand, is 7th in the points table with just one win in three games, and a negative Net Run Rate of -0.800.
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