Hyderabad : Following his team's win over Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH), Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) skipper Rishabh Pant hailed Nicholas Pooran for his brilliant knock and bowlers Prince Yadav and Shardul Thakur for their performances.
Quickfire half-centuries from Nicholas Pooran and Mitchell Marsh and a fiery spell from Shardul Thakur helped Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) topple a hard-hitting Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) by five wickets at Uppal Stadium during their Indian Premier League (IPL) clash on Thursday. Following the match in the post-match presentation, Pant called the win a "big relief".
"It is about not getting too high when you win and not about getting too low when you lose. As a team, we can't focus on uncontrollables. My mentor (Zaheer Khan) said to focus on controllable, and that is what I did. Good to see the way Prince Yadav bowled and also Thakur was really good. (On Pooran batting at No. 3) I think we just want to give freedom to him. You got to give someone the charge when he is batting well and he has batted brilliantly for us. The group is coming up nicely, we have not played our best so far but happy to get a win," he said.
Coming to the match, SRH was put to bat first by LSG, who had opted to bowl first. Shardul restricted LSG to 15/2, but a 61-run partnership between Travis Head (47 in 28 balls, with five fours and a six) and Nitish Kumar Reddy (32 in 28 balls, with two fours) stabilised the innings for a bit. Cameos did come from Heinrich Klaasen (26 in 17 balls, with two fours and a six), Aniket Varma (36 in 13 balls, with five sixes) and skipper Pat Cummins (18 in four balls, with three sixes), which pushed SRH to 190/9 in their 20 overs.
Shardul (4/34) was the top bowler for LSG, while Avesh Khan, Prince Yadav, Digvesh Rathi and Ravi Bishnoi getting a wicket each. During the run-chase, LSG lost Aiden Markram early, but a 116-run stand between Nicholas Pooran (70 in 26 balls, with six fours and six sixes) and Mitchell Marsh (52 in 31 balls, with seven fours and two sixes) and a fine cameo in the end from Abdul Samad (22* in eight balls, with two fours and two sixes) pushed LSG to a five-wicket win with 23 balls left. Pat (2/29) was the top bowler for SRH.Shardul was named the 'Player of the Match' for his fiery spell.