Nicholas Pooran smashed his way to 70 runs off 26 balls as Lucknow Super Giants hammered Sunrisers Hyderabad on Thursday, March 27. The former SRH player, who has been promoted to No. 3 this season, ripped into the SRH bowling attack, helping LSG chase down 191 runs in just 16.1 overs at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium.
Pooran (70 off 26 balls) was aided by Mitchell Marsh (52 off 31 balls) as Lucknow notched up their first victory of the season on Friday. LSG were superb with both ball and bat, first restricting SRH to just 190 runs in the first innings and then chasing the target down, on what looked like a slightly tricky pitch to bat on.
LSG took away the game inside the powerplay alone, hitting 77 runs after losing one wicket. Between the 3rd and the 7th over, Pooran and Marsh added 82 runs, taking the game away from Hyderabad. Mohammed Shami, Simarjeet Singh, Adam Zampa, and Abhishek Sharma were taken apart in that period as LSG made sure to stamp their authority on the game.
Pooran’s rampant hitting across all parts of the park meant that LSG crossed the 100-run mark in the 8th over itself, much faster than Sunrisers, who reached the milestone in the 11th over of the game.
The West Indian got out in the 9th over of the match, against Pat Cummins, who was able to tail the ball into the batter from around the wicket and catch him plumb in front of the stumps.
After Pooran’s wicket, SRH were able to make a mini-comeback in the game. SRH skipper Pat Cummins managed to dismiss both Pooran and Marsh in back-to-back overs, which resulted in two more wickets of Ayush Badoni and Rishabh Pant as well. However, the damage had already been done inside the first 8 overs of the game, and LSG finished off the game in 16.1 overs. Former SRH star Abdul Samad, who was backed heavily by SRH in his early days of the IPL, finished the game in style with an innings of 22 off just 8 balls.
With the win, LSG were able to notch up their first victory of the season.
Coming into this game, the conversation surrounding SRH vs LSG was dominated by the discourse of whether Hyderabad would become the first team to score 300 runs in a T20 game or not. However, Shardul Thakur doused the fire with a sensational spell in the first innings, picking up 4 wickets to his name.
