It was a repeat of last season’s incident. Sunrisers Hyderabad’s openers, Abhishek Sharma and Travis Head, chased down Lucknow Super Giants’ 165 runs in just 9.4 overs.
Today, it seemed like Nicholas Pooran wanted revenge for that match against Hyderabad. And he got it. Pooran played a brilliant knock of 70 runs off just 25 balls. His team, Lucknow, successfully chased Hyderabad’s 190 runs with 23 balls and 5 wickets to spare.
At the Rajiv Gandhi Stadium, Pooran slammed the fastest fifty of this season’s IPL in just 18 balls against Hyderabad. He had also scored a fifty in the first match, which came off 24 balls. Today’s innings featured 6 fours and 6 sixes, and the Caribbean batsman took on Hyderabad in a style very much like theirs.
Impact Player Mitchell Marsh also scored a fifty, hitting 52 runs off 31 balls, marking his second consecutive fifty. Rishabh Pant, who had failed to score in the first match, was once again disappointing, getting out for just 15 runs off 15 balls. Otherwise, the game could have ended in 13-14 overs.
After losing the toss and being sent in to bat, Hyderabad’s batsmen were subdued. They couldn’t play as aggressively as expected. In the third over of the innings, they lost Abhishek Sharma and Ishan Kishan to Shardul Thakur, putting the team under pressure.
Despite this, Hyderabad managed 62 runs for 2 wickets in 6 overs. Travis Head scored 47 runs off 28 balls before getting out. Heinrich Klaasen came in and continued his aggressive batting, but he was run out after scoring 26 runs off 17 balls. With Klaasen gone, Aniket Barma hit 36 runs off 13 balls, and Pat Cummins added a cameo of 18 runs off 4 balls, helping Hyderabad reach a total of 190 runs.
This was Lucknow’s first win of the season, after losing to Delhi in their first match. Hyderabad, who won their first match against Rajasthan, suffered their first defeat of this season.
