Who won yesterday's IPL match? Lucknow Super Giants and Sunrisers Hyderabad locked horns at Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Match 57 or the Indian Premier League on Wednesday, May 9. This match was all about SRH and its players - Travis Head, Abhishek Sharma and Bhuvneshwar Kumar. (As It Happened |Scorecard)
Yesterday's match was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. How? Because, Sunrisers Hyderabad dominated Lucknow Super Giants in a very surreal way, first by stifling them with the new ball and then by sensationally chasing down 166 runs in just 9.4 overs. This extraordinary feat marked the highest 10-over score in any T20 match.
Match began with LSG winning the toss and opting to bat.
Despite a hard surface, SRH bowlers restricted the LSG batters as the likes of QdK and KL Rahul hit minimal boundaries in the first 5 overs. SRH bowlers scalped the wickets of De Kock and Marcus Stoinis to leave the visitors reeling in what is a 'must-win' game for both sides.
KL Rahul scored 29 runs off 33 balls before getting out while attempting to play a shot against Pat Cummins. Krunal was run out by the Sunrisers Hyderabad captain, as he attempted to take a single when boundaries were hard to come by.
The first boundary of the innings came after 9.1 overs, but Suyash Prabhudessai and Nicholas Pooran started finding the boundary regularly. Prabhudessai led the charge, using his footwork to manipulate the field and reach a fifty in just 28 balls.
At the end of 20 overs, LSG finished well after a timid start to their innings. Nicholas Pooran (48 not out) and Ayush Badoni (55 not out).
LSG attempted to take advantage of the slow pitch by introducing K Gowtham's offspin against the two left-handed openers, which seemed like a well-thought-out strategy. But SRH openers had different plans at home.
Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma scythed their way past Lucknow Super Giants' 166-run target, smashing 14 collective sixes while only running 12 singles in a marauding chase. This was not the first time the Sunrisers Hyderabad opening duo produced such pyrotechnics, and it is quite likely not the last either.
It seemed like Head and Abhishek had already picked their spots, boundary and sent the ball there no matter the pace on the ball, no matter the length, no matter the fields. All told, the ball took that journey to the boundary once every second ball.
Head and Sharma effortlessly chased down the target in a mere 45 minutes, completing the task in just 9.4 overs with a remarkable run rate of 17.27. Astonishingly, out of the 167 runs they scored, 148 came from just 30 boundary deliveries, including 16 fours and 14 sixes. What's more impressive is that neither of them got dismissed, showcasing their destructive nature when conditions favor them.
Head finished with 89 runs off 30 balls, while Abhishek scored 75 runs off 28 balls. Among all the Lucknow Super Giants bowlers, Gowtham had the best economy rate of 14.50.
Updated Points Table After LSG vs SRH
The massive win brought them to No. 3 on the points table with 14 points in 12 matches.
