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Giants’ all-round show too much for Delhi
Quinton de Kock scores 80 after bowlers restrict Capitals to 149.
A fine 80 off 52 balls by opener Quinton de Kock after a good bowling performance helped Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) down Delhi Capitals in the Indian Premier League game played at the DY Patil Stadium on Thursday.
Capitals were always going to find it difficult to defend a total of 149. de Kock extinguished whatever little hope they had by taking the score to 122, hitting nine fours and two sixes. When the left-handed opener fell, LSG needed 28 off 24 balls with seven wickets in hand. Krunal Pandya took 14 runs from the 19th over bowled by Mustafizur Rahman to make it five runs off six balls and seal the contest.
The six-wicket win was LSG’s third in four games and they are now level on six points with Kolkata Knight Riders at the top of the table.
Earlier, spinners Ravi Bishnoi and Krishnappa Gowtham built the pressure with stingy spells in the middle overs to help LSG recover from the damage done by the early assault of opener Prithvi Shaw (61 runs off 34 balls).
Bishnoi, who at the end of the 11th over, had claimed two wickets for 13 runs, finished with figures of 4-0-22-2. At the other end, Gowtham did the near impossible by bowling a maiden to Rishabh Pant in the 12th over and finished with fine figures of 4-0-23-1.
Then, Jason Holder and Avesh Khan put paid to Capitals’ aim of keeping wickets and attacking in the slog overs with a brilliant display of death bowling.
Capitals’ fourth-wicket pair of Pant and Sarfaraz Khan had readied themselves for the final assault by getting their eye in and then plundering 18 and 13 runs in the 16th and 17th overs. Holder and Khan, however, held their nerve and with clever variations in line, length and pace, never allowed the well-set pair to free their arms. LSG’s West Indian all-rounder bowled the 18th over for six runs, Khan also conceded just six runs in the penultimate over. In the final over, Holder allowed Pant and Sarfaraz Khan just six singles apart from a wide ball.
It was a disappointing show from the Capitals who had their two big name signings available for the game, David Warner and Anrich Nortje. Capitals’ gamble with Nortje backfired. Coming off a long lay-off due to a hip injury, the pace ace clearly looked under-cooked. He had to be taken off the bowling after 2.2 overs for bowling two beamers in the game.
The star fast bowler was greeted with three fours off his first three balls and a six of the fifth by his South Africa teammate de Kock. With the pacer trying to pitch it up, the left-hand batter drove him through the covers and then twice down the ground. On the fifth ball, the bowler pitched it short and was duly sent over the fence by de Kock who then moved to 35 off 20 balls. The 19-run over released the pressure built in the first four overs in which LSG had managed only 26 runs. It left captain Pant with a big headache. Defending a small total, he now had his strike bowler misfiring.
