Mankad, Pooran and Stoinis lead Lucknow to victory against Hyderabad
With the first half-century innings of Prerak Mankad (64 not out in 45 balls), Marcus Stoinis (40 runs in 25 balls) and Nicholls Pooran (44 not out in 13 balls) with the batting of Lucknow Supergiants won the Indian Premier League (IPL) T20. In the match here on Saturday, Sunrisers Hyderabad were defeated by seven wickets. Mankad hit seven fours and two sixes in his innings while Stoinis hit two fours and three sixes. Pooran hit three fours and four sixes to ensure the team’s victory. Sunrisers Hyderabad, batting first, scored 182 runs for six wickets.
Lucknow Supergiants achieved the target in 19.2 overs for the loss of three wickets. With this win, the Lucknow team reached the fourth position in the table with 13 points from 12 matches. Hyderabad has eight points in 11 matches and the road for the team to make it to the playoffs has become very difficult. Lucknow had lost three wickets for 54 runs, but after that, Mankad and Stoinis brought the team back in the match by sharing 73 runs in 43 balls for the third wicket, while Mankad and Puran’s unbroken 58-run partnership in 23 balls helped the team. Sealed the victory of Earlier, Sunrisers Hyderabad scored a competitive score on the basis of a 40-ball 58-run partnership for the sixth wicket between Heinrich Klaasen (47) and Abdul Samad (37 not out).
Klaasen hit three fours and as many sixes in his 29-ball innings, while Samad hit one four and four sixes in his 25-ball innings. Anmolpreet Singh (36 off 27 balls), captain Aiden Markram (28 off 20 balls) and Rahul Tripathi (20 off 13 balls) failed to convert good starts into big innings for the team. Captain Krunal Pandya took two wickets for 24 runs in four overs for Lucknow Supergiants. Yudhveer Singh, Avesh Khan, Yash Thakur and Amit Mishra got one success each.
Defending the target, the Hyderabad bowlers managed just four runs in the first two overs. In the third over, Quinton Dickock hit a four, while in the same over, Kyle Myers opened his account on the 11th ball. However, he was dismissed by part-time bowler Glenn Phillips in the very next over. He scored two runs in 14 balls. Prerak Mankad hit consecutive fours against Fazalhaq Farooqi in the sixth over, leaving the team at 30 for one after the power play.
De Kock accelerated the run rate in the next over by hitting sixes and fours in consecutive balls against Mayank Markande but the bowler trapped him in the spin after taking a four in his next over. After this, Prerak Mankad and Stoinis batted carefully in the next few overs. After hitting a six and a four against Markandeya in the 14th over, Mankad completed his half-century with a single against Bhuvneshwar in the 15th over. Stoinis hit his first six in this over. The 16th over of the match was special. Stoinis hit two consecutive sixes against Abhishek Sharma but was dismissed on the third ball.
Nicholas Pooran hit sixes in the next three balls as soon as he came to the crease. The team collected 31 runs from this over and the match turned from here. Mankad hit a six and a four against Natarajan in the 17th over to bring the team closer to the target. After hitting a six off Natarajan, Puran gave the team victory by hitting a four in the last over against Farukhi. Earlier, in the third over of the match, Yudhveer got Abhishek Sharma (seven runs in five balls) caught by wicketkeeper Quinton Dickock and gave the team the first success. In the next over, Tripathi hit two fours against skipper Krunal Pandya.
He welcomed Avesh Khan with two consecutive fours in the fifth over. In the same over, opener Anmolpreet Singh also hit two fours to take the team’s score past 50. In the next over, Tripathi was caught behind the wicket by Yash Thakur’s bouncer. Markram hit a six against Amit Mishra in the ninth over but the veteran leg-spinner took a brilliant catch of Anmolpreet off his own ball in the same over. Heinrich Klaasen, who came to the crease, opened the account of fours. He hit a four and a six against Ravi Bishnoi in the 12th over. In the next over, Krunal gave double success to Lucknow by running Markram and Glenn Phillips (0) on consecutive balls.
While Abdul Samad hit Thakur for a six in the 14th over, Klaasen sent Mishra home to the visitors in the 16th over. Samad hit a six against Krunal in the next over to take the team’s score past 150. Avesh got the South African batsman out in the 19th over after hitting a six from Samad and a four from Klaasen. Yash Thakur spent only nine runs in the last over even after hitting a six from Samad. Meanwhile, in the 19th over of Hyderabad’s innings, the match was briefly interrupted due to unruly behavior of the spectators. Avesh Khan bowled a beamer to Abdul Samad and the on-field umpire called it a no-ball.
Sunrisers Hyderabad then took DRS but the third umpire also called it a legal ball. After the third umpire’s decision, Heinrich Klaasen, batting with Samad, spoke to the on-field umpires as television replays and the ‘ball tracker’ showed the ball going over the wicket with the batsman waist. After this Lucknow Supergiants head coach Andy Flower and mentor Gautam Gambhir along with other team members got up from the dug-out and came to the boundary line. He was pointing something towards the audience gallery. It looked like someone in the crowd had thrown something. The spectators were chanting ‘Kohli-Kohli’ along with it. He was probably trying to tease Gambhir who had a spat with former India captain Virat Kohli sometime back.
