LSG ride Pooran’s 19-ball 62 to win last-ball thriller
Kohli, du Plessis and Maxwell hit fifties but LSG rally through Stoinis and Pooran before stealing a last-ball win with one wicket in hand
Back home, and Royal Challengers Bangalore thought they could go back to scripting heavy, one-sided wins. Last time, they had chased 171 in 16.2 overs, losing just two wickets. On Monday, they amassed 212/2 before almost putting the screws on Lucknow Super Giants’ innings. Almost, because then came a staggering 62 from Nicholas Pooran, off just 19 balls, in an 84-run stand with Ayush Badoni that nearly propelled LSG to a waltzing victory.
After Pooran fell, the equation read 24 from 18 balls. Then Badoni, getting hit-wicket trying to slog sweep a six, and LSG still needed seven off eight. It could have been achieved in singles but sanity took a nosedive as Mark Wood and Jaydev Unadkat’s wild swings added more drama before Harshal Patel tried to run out Ravi Bishnoi at the non-striker’s end. RCB withdrew the appeal instantly and Avesh Khan finally managed to fumble to the other end after Dinesh Karthik failed to cleanly collect the ball. LSG won by one wicket.
For consecutive matches, Virat Kohli and Faf du Plessis got to contrasting fifties. And then, third ball of the first over of the chase, Mohammed Siraj got the in-form Kyle Mayers to chop on to his stumps. Add to that the satisfaction of having Wayne Parnell –signed as replacement of Reece Topley – rip the heart out of LSG’s power batting by removing Deepak Hooda and Krunal Pandya in the fourth over and Bengaluru’s Chinnaswamy Stadium was already roaring “RCB, RCB” by the fourth over. But their bowling fell short again.
Strong resistance in the form of a 76-run fourth wicket stand between KL Rahul and Marcus Stoinis – in which the Australian all-rounder hammered 65 off 30 – meant they gave the target a mighty chase till the halfway mark. But Stoinis was dismissed trying to hit one six too many. One wicket led to another as Rahul fell in the next over, picking out Kohli at deep square trying to flick Siraj, after a scratchy 18 off 20.
In came Pooran, in the 11th over no less and he straightaway got to resuscitating LSG’s chase by slogging Karn Sharma for a six. Next over from Sharma, this time two sixes. Harshal Patel was spanked for two sixes and a four. Parnell was smoked over long-on for a six that fetched Pooran a fifty off just 15 balls–this season’s fastest–and he could possibly hear a pin drop at Chinnaswamy. The target whittled down to 42 from 30 balls, with Ayush Badoni staying calm at the other end, all Pooran needed to do was to tick off the remaining runs.
In hindsight, 212 was probably a par score at Chinnaswamy. It’s a score that won’t tell you that for seven overs in the middle, they were averaging 6.85 per over after running away to 56/0 in the Powerplay. A slide looked more imminent once Kohli had been felled by Amit Mishra in the 12th over, holing to Marcus Stoinis at deep midwicket. The next nine balls went for 10 runs, including a maiden from Mark Wood.
But once Maxwell started finding his range, there was no looking back. Du Plessis joined the carnage as well, thumping Ravi Bishnoi for two consecutive sixes after getting to 33 off 31 balls. He scored 46 off the next 15 balls. The last seven overs produced 108 runs for one wicket at 15.42 per over.
In an innings where 15 sixes were hit compared to 12 fours, 11 of them had come in the second half, six from Maxwell’s bat alone. Strategically, LSG possibly erred in not giving Amit Mishra more overs when Maxwell was batting, allowing him 20 out of 29 balls from pacers. In the end though, it didn’t matter.