Lucknow has made it to the playoffs for the second consecutive season.Image Credit source: BCCI
Kolkata: Lucknow Super Giants somehow saved their hopes on the last ball and made it to the playoffs of IPL 2023. Despite Rinku Singh’s attack in the last over, Kolkata could not win this time and lost the match by 1 run. With this, Kolkata was out of the tournament. At the same time, Lucknow made its place in the playoffs for the second time in a row. The team will remain in third place.
Kolkata started their batting in a tremendous way. However, the team made a big change in the opening, replacing Rahmanullah Gurbaz with Venkatesh Iyer. It was beneficial in the beginning but later the loss was realized. Jason Roy (45) and Iyer (24) added 61 runs inside the powerplay. Iyer was dismissed on the last ball of the sixth over.
Iyer’s wicket changed the situation. Captain Nitish Rana and Jason Roy were also dismissed within the next 21 runs. Gurbaj, who opened the whole season, landed at number four and could not make any impact, but could score only 10 runs in 15 balls. Yash Thakur made him his victim. At the same time, Andre Russell’s bad season continued till the last match and he was bowled by Ravi Bishnoi.
Poor start of Lucknow
Lucknow Super Giants had chosen to bat first, but looking at the kind of start they got, captain Krunal Pandya and the team management must have been tensed for a while. By the seventh over itself, the team had lost 3 wickets and the score was only 55 runs. Karan Sharma, Prerak Mankad and Marcus Stoinis had returned to the pavilion. Harshit Rana had dealt with Mankad and Stoinis in a single over.
Nicholas Pooran’s explosive innings again
Soon Captain Pandya and Quinton Dickock were also settled. There was only a score of 71 and 5 wickets fell in 10.1 overs. The situation was serious. There was a need to do something special and its most expensive player Nicholas Pooran did it once again like in the last several matches. This left-handed explosive batsman scored his second half-century of this season in just 28 balls.
Before being dismissed in the 19th over, Puran had put the team in a competitive position with an explosive inning of 58 runs. Pooran also got good support from Ayush Badoni (25), while in the last over, Krishnappa Gautam (11) hit some big shots to take the team to a good score of 176.
