Nicholas Pooran (70, 26 balls) and Shardul Thakur (4/34) starred for Lucknow Super Giants as they usurped Sunrisers Hyderabad by five wickets in their Indian Premier League match in Hyderabad on Thursday. LSG chased down the target of 191 in the 17th over to register their first win of the 2025 IPL season.
Pooran, who came in at the fall of Aiden Markram’s wicket, explored every nook and corner of the ground to ensure LSG were always ahead of the required run-rate. In the third over itself, Pooran gave an exhibition of his stroke-play by pulling and hoicking Simarjeet Singh over the boundary rope. The flurry of shots continued as Abhishek Sharma too was welcomed to the bowling crease with a couple of sixes.
The highlight of his innings was perhaps the lofted drive off Adam Zampa in the seventh over. Pooran fetched the ball from outside the off-stump and deposited it down the ground. The southpaw, who also completed the fastest fifty of this IPL yet, was eventually dismissed LBW by Pat Cummins. He took a review but to no avail.
By the time Pooran was dismissed, the asking-rate was just around six-and-half runs per over. Mitchell Marsh, who stitched a stand of 116 with Pooran, compiled a 31-ball 52. Ayush Badoni, who came out to bat at the No. 4, could only muster six runs. Rishabh Pant, the LSG skipper, too, couldn’t make much of an impression, losing his wicket for 15. David Miller then guided his side home in the company of Abdul Samad, who in turn scored 22 off just eight deliveries.
Earlier, it was all about Shardul. The all-rounder, who came into the LSG set-up as a replacement for Mohsin Khan, dented SRH in the third over of the innings. He removed Abhishek with a short ball and then followed that up by dislodging Ishan Kishan in the same over. Ishan, who composed a hundred in the previous game, would believe that he was a trifle unlucky after being caught down the leg-side.
Thakur made a couple more incisions in the slog overs, bagging the wickets of Abhinav Manohar and Mohammed Shami. His figures read: 4-0-34-4. It has been a redemption of sorts for Shardul as he is the current Purple Cap holder with six wickets. Just over four months ago, the same cricketer went unsold in the mega auction.
Avesh Khan, Digvesh Rathi, Ravi Bishnoi and Prince Yadav also chipped in with a wicket each. Incidentally, Prince’s lone wicket was that of Travis Head, one of the mainstays of the SRH line-up.
For SRH, Head top-scored with 47. Meanwhile, Aniket Verma gave a glimpse of his promise with a quickfire 13-ball 36. Ravi Bishnoi and Rathi were the two spinners that he targeted.
Brief scores: SRH 190/9 in 20 overs (Travis Head 47, Aniket Verma 36; Shardul Thakur 4/34) lost to LSG 193/5 in 16.1 overs (Nicholas Pooran 70, Mitchell Marsh 52; Pat Cummins 2/29) by five wickets