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The T20 format is the most unpredictable format of cricket. Anything can happen within an over. And that is what exactly happened tonight in the Indian Premier League, IPL. Lucknow Super Giants chased down 212 runs to beat Royal Challengers Bangalore tonight. They secured the match in the very last ball with one wicket in their hands.
Toss: KL Rahul, the captain of Lucknow Super Giants, won the toss and opted to bowl first.
Kohli and du Plessis were out of the world
Losing the toss, Royal Challengers Bangalore started their batting innings with Virat Kohli and Faf du Plessis. The two openers took no time to start hitting boundaries as they charged the bowlers from the very first ball. The RCB lost no wickets in the powerplay as the two openers continued picking runs. Kohli and Du Plessis got their half-century against the LSG. Together they made a fantastic partnership of 96 runs.
However, Amit Mishra brought the first breakthrough as he picked up Virat Kohli in the 12th over. After that, Glenn Maxwell came into the crease and started destroying the LSG bowlers. With du Plessis, he made another partnership of 108 runs. Maxwell scored a quick 59 runs from 29 balls before leaving the crease, while du Plessis remained not out in 79 runs. Relying on their runs, Royal Challengers Bangalore ended up their innings with a massive 212 runs.
LSG had a poor start, but the middle order changed everything
Chasing the massive target, Lucknow’s top order collapsed. They lost three wickets in 23 runs. Therefore, the match was under the control of the RCB. But Nicholas Pooran and Marcus Stoinis changed everything. The two batters were literally unstoppable against the RCB bowlers. They made a partnership of 76 runs to handle the initial disaster.
After that, Stoinis lost his wicket after scoring 65 runs from 30 balls. But Nicholas Pooran was super aggressive for the LSG. With seven sixes and four fours, Pooran scored a quick 63 runs only from 19 balls. These two scores made it easy for the remaining batters to chase the target. Ayush Badhoni scored 30 runs, which helped the LSG to win the match by one wicket only.
Nicholas Pooran’s reaction
Nicholas Poorann won the Player of the Match Award. He said, “I want to dedicate this performance to my wife and new born. We knew that the game was on, Stoinis and KL had a wonderful partnership. Stoinis kept us in the game, and I knew this was a nice wicket. We could chase even over 50 in the last four, it was about cashing in.”
