IMAGES from the IPL match played between Sunrisers Hyderabad and Lucknow Super Giants in Hyderabad on Friday.
Nicholas Pooran's sensational late cameo powered Lucknow Super Giants to a seven-wicket victory over Sunrisers Hyderabad, to keep their play-off hopes alive, in the IPL 2023 match in Hyderabad on Saturday.
Chasing 183 for victory, LSG looked in trouble before Pooran turned the game on its head, smashing 44 not out from 13 balls, hitting four sixes and three fours, as the visitors got home with four balls to spare.
Prerak Mankad bagged his maiden IPL half-century, with a composed innings of 64 not out from 45 balls, as he put on a crucial unbeaten stand of 58 from 23 balls for the fourth wicket. Marcus Stoinis also played a crucial innings of 45 from 20 balls.
LSG stay in the hunt for the play-offs, as they climb to fourth with 13 points from 12 games behind Gujarat Titans (16 points), CSK (15 points) and Mumbai Indians (14 points).
As far as SRH are concerned, they are staring at another early exit after managing just four wins from 11 games.
Till the 15th over, SRH controlled the proceedings as LSG crawled to 114/2, needing 68 more from five overs.
However, Aiden Markram's decision to give an extra over to Abhishek Sharma backfired as the part-time spinner was carted for five sixes.
Stoinis thumped him for two maximums before being holed out at deep extra cover boundary. But Pooran came in and smashed three sixes off his first three balls to completely change the equation as LSG got 31 runs from the 16th over.
Credit should be given to Saurashtra's Mankad, who struggled to get going during the middle overs. But a pep-talk from mentor Gautam Gambhir during strategic time-out saw a sea-change in his approach as he showed more intent, hitting Thangarasu Natarajan for a six and a four in the 17th over.
Pooran never held back after his whirlwind start as he kept attacking the SRH bowlers, hitting Bhuvneshwar Kumar for back to back fours in the 18th over and slammed Natarajan for a six in the penultimate over.
The West Indian steered LSG to a memorable victory as he glanced Fazalhaq Farooqi for a four in the final over.
Earlier, Krunal Pandya produced a couple of back-to-back high quality deliveries before Heinrich Klaasen and Abdul Samad took Sunrisers Hyderabad to a competitive 182/6 against Lucknow Super Giants.
Not known as a big turner of the ball, LSG skipper Krunal (2/24 in 4 overs) bowled two identical classical left-arm orthodox deliveries, which had drift as well as enough turn to hoodwink Sunrisers skipper Aiden Markram (28 off 20 balls) and Glenn Phillips (0) off successive deliveries.
In case of Markram, Krunal drew him forward before the ball beat his outside edge to get stumped.
And the same delivery, pitched on same length found Phillips going on back-foot to see it deviate past his bat and peg the off-stump back. That the ball gripped a bit on both occasions also helped the bowler's cause.
However, Heinrich Klaasen (47 off 29 balls), inarguably SRH's best batter, was in his natural attacking self as his three fours and an equal number of sixes took his team to a respectable total.
The difference between Krunal and leg-spinners Amit Mishra (1/40 in 4 overs) and Ravi Bishnoi (0/23 in 2 overs) was the optimum pace in his deliveries.
In case of Bishnoi, he ended up bowling half-trackers while trying to bowl fast. When Mishra bowled, it didn't help as he is much slower through the air compared to his younger days. Hence, the batters got enough time to plan their shots.
Having opting to bat, SRH started off well despite losing Abhishek Sharma cheaply as Anmolpreet Singh (36 off 27) and Rahul Tripathi (20 off 13 balls) hit nine boundaries between them in the Powerplay overs itself.
It was Yash Thakur's (1/27 in 4 overs) well directed bouncer that got rid of Tripathi while Mishra's flighted delivery stopped on Anmolpreet, who handed a return catch to the bowler.
Once Krunal's wickets reduced SRH to 115 for 5, Klaasen took it upon himself and got support from Abdul Samad (37 not out off 25 balls) as the duo added 58 in 6.4 overs to take the score past 175-run mark.
Towards the end of the SRH innings, the match was briefly stopped when third umpire withheld the on-field umpire's decision of ruling an Avesh Khan full-toss as a fair delivery when it looked a no-ball.
That agitated the crowd which must have disturbed the LSG dug-out to briefly halt proceedings and Klaasen lost his concentration to miss out on a well-deserved half-ton.
