An all-round performance from KL Rahul-led Lucknow Super Giants helped them beat a depleted Sunrisers Hyderabad by five wickets at the Bharat Ratna Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Cricket Stadium on Friday (April 7).
Earlier, Sunrisers Hyderabad’s top-order was toppled by spinners Krunal Pandya and Amit Mishra on a sluggish black-soil pitch. Lucknow restricted Hyderabad to 121 for 8 in their IPL match. Left-arm spinner Krunal Pandya (3/18) bagged priced scalps of Mayank Agarwal (8), Anmolpreet Singh (31) and captain Aiden Makram (0) to leave Sunrisers Hyderabad reeling at 50 for loss of three wickets.
Apart from Krunal, veteran leg-spinner Amit Mishra (2/23) produced a magical spell while Ravi Bishnoi and Yash Thakur chipped in with a wicket each to restrict SRH to a small total.
SRH captain Aiden Markram, making his debut in 2023 season of Indian Premier League (IPL), was dismissed in the first ball he played as it spun away to rattle his off stump. Ravi Bishnoi then cleaned up Harry Brook (3), leaving a depleted SRH struggling at 55 for 4 in nine overs. From here, it was all but a down-ride for Sunrisers Hyderabad, who failed to recover every time they tried to rebuild their innings with a partnership.
At the end of powerplay, Sunrisers Hyderabad were 43 for 1 and later at the halfway stage, they were reduced to 63 for 4. Rahul Tripathi (34) played a lone hand in the second half of the innings as he stitched 39 runs, the highest partnership for SRH, with Washington Sundar (16), before he fell in the 18th over off the bowling of Yash Thakur. Abdul Samad hit two sixes in the final over bowled by Jaydev Unadkat to take the SRH score past 120.
