Led by Mayank Yadav‘s fiery spell of fast bowling, Lucknow Super Giants registered a 28-run win over Royal Challengers Bangalore at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium on Tuesday. Mayank Yadav set the speed gun on fire once again and ripped out Glenn Maxwell and Cameron Green on his way to figures of 4-0-14-3 as Lucknow Super Giants successfully defended 181 to hand Royal Challengers Bengaluru their second successive defeat at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium.
Mayank Yadav repeatedly breached 150kph – and even cranked it up to a season-high 156.7kph – to shut down RCB’s chase. The back-of-the-hand slower balls from Reece Topley and Yash Dayal were sticking in the surface, but Mayank Yadav doesn’t do slow.
Pitch and Toss
Pitch number 7 which was used for the first game against Punjab Kings – 175 was the score. Average first innings score over here in the last few years has gone up to 196. What I have seen straightaway on this pitch is that it’s very dry. I think there will be spin, especially for Glenn Maxwell. We saw the other night (RCB vs PBKS), Glenn Maxwell was getting turn. Both spinners for RCB were getting turn – the left-armer and the off-spinner.
This pitch is very dry. It’s the highest turning ground on average this year in the IPL. This area outside the off-stump for the right-handed batsmen, this is the sort of area that Maxwell will be looking to pitch the ball. It’s almost like a riverbed, very dry, a lot of these cracks don’t move but right next to these cracks, there’s a little bit of grass as well.
The ball will behave differently whether it pitches on the brown bit or the green. It may be slightly two-paced. The odd ball turns, the odd ball goes straight. A very good pitch for bowling spin” reckons Murali Kartik and Graeme Swann.
RCB skipper Faf Du Plessis won the toss and chose to bowl makes one change as Reece Topley comes in for Alzarri Joseph. LSG skipper KL Rahul who has lost the toss will bat first with one change in the squad as Mohsin Khan is replaced by Yash Thakur due to sore back.
Quinton de Kock dashes out of the blocks to score 2nd fifty on the trot
Quinton de Kock wasn’t in two minds when he walked out to bat. Even after being beaten early by Reece Topley in the opening over, he took the attack to the left-arm pacer. After getting a top-edge which flew for a boundary over slips, he found his groove and struck a couple of more boundaries on either end of the ground. He kept the attack going even against Mohammed Siraj in the third over, flicking the pacer for a couple of sixes towards fine leg and square leg respectively.
However, while he had surged to 29 runs off his first 12 deliveries, KL Rahul, at the other end, was cautious with his strokeplay early on yet again, managing only six runs off his first 10 deliveries. The LSG skipper eventually broke free late in the fifth over when he hit Yash Dayal for a six down the ground.
He continued to show that aggression in the last over of the powerplay against Glenn Maxwell, and briefly succeeded with sweeping the offie for a six even as Rajat Patidar did manage to get his palms to the ball. However, the risky slogging eventually backfired as he top-edged Maxwell to the cover fielder.
De Kock had started the last IPL season on the bench as Kyle Mayers was preferred ahead of him. De Kock was then removed as Durban’s Super Giants captain ahead of SA20 2024, which followed. In the SA20, he got only two innings as an opener, but he has now reasserted his authority at the top this IPL with back-to-back half-centuries.
When Topley, de Kock’s team-mate in the SA20, offered him width, he stayed leg side of the ball and crunched him through the covers. Mohammed Siraj didn’t offer de Kock as much width, but when he erred on height and bowled at the thigh, de Kock picked him over square leg. De Kock claimed 32 of the 54 runs LSG scored in the powerplay for the loss of Rahul.
De Kock could have been dismissed for 32 in the next over, but Maxwell dropped him. He added 49 to his tally before Topley eventually had him holing out to long-off for 81 off 56 balls.
Maxwell impresses with the ball as RCB squeeze LSG in the middle overs.
On a night when RCB’s specialist spinner Mayank Dagar bowled just two overs for 23 runs, Maxwell stepped up with 4-0-23-2, including 12 dots. He fronted up to bowl two overs in the powerplay, where he had Rahul caught at extra-cover with a hard-length delivery.
He then returned after the powerplay to remove another right-hander – Marcus Stoinis (24 in 15) – by hiding the ball away from his reach. Maxwell also won his match-up against de Kock, keeping him to four off eight balls. That Maxwell, with four strikes, is RCB’s highest wicket-taker this season after four games shines the spotlight on the inefficiency of the frontline bowlers.
De Kock continued to hold the charge of LSG’s innings even after the powerplay. However, it was in two parts – at times being constricted and in phases, highly productive. On a pitch where the ball was holding on a bit, it was proving difficult for the batters to time the ball. Maxwell was effective in the middle overs, especially while coming up against the left-handed duo of de Kock and Devdutt Padikkal.
In the first over after the powerplay, Topley returned and beat de Kock a couple of times. The southpaw even got his first reprieve when he mistimed a slog over the mid off fielder where Maxwell couldn’t hold on despite a terrific diving effort. In the five overs after Powerplay, RCB conceded only 36 runs and brought the scoring rate close to 8 an over.
That’s when De Kock started to find boundaries again. First Mayank Dagar, bowling poor lines, bore the brunt of his attack and then Cameron Green was taken apart for 19 runs with the seamer struggling to get his lengths right. Even as De Kock blazed away to 81, he couldn’t find ample support from the other end. Padikkal struggled his way to a 11-ball 6. Stoinis hit a few lusty blows but his innings lasted merely 15 balls. Nicholas Pooran too struggled early on scoring only 8 runs off the first 10 balls.
Nicholas Pooran assault leads LSG to 181 for 5
Pooran too missed a few, especially against Topley and Siraj. But he connected a few as well, and took full toll of those. After Anuj Rawat put down a fairly easy chance to dismiss Pooran on 2, the southpaw hammered five sixes and a boundary to power LSG to 181, a total that seemed quite gettable around the 13th over mark, but began to slip away from LSG’s grasp by the end of the 18th over.
Siddharth arrives in the IPL
M Siddharth, the Tamil Nadu finger spinner, was born in Jakarta in Indonesia. He moved to Chennai along with his family to become a professional cricketer. He wanted to become the next Irfan Pathan, but the coaches at his academy noted that he didn’t have enough pace to become a fast bowler.
So, Siddharth switched to left-arm spin, but he continues to swing the new ball. That’s his calling card in the Tamil Nadu Premier League. LSG’s team management had so much faith in him that they backed him to bowl with the new ball against Virat Kohli and Faf du Plessis on the night.
After darting inswingers at speeds north of 110kph, Siddharth slowed his pace down and drew a leading edge from Kohli. In the next over, du Plessis was run-out, leaving RCB at 42 for 2 in the sixth over.
Defending a near-par total, LSG opened the attack with two left-arm spinners – M Siddharth and Krunal Pandya, both often operating at over 100kph – against Virat Kohli and Faf du Plessis. There was a point when Kohli went on the offensive against Pandya, but they opening duo was mostly content with working the ball around gaps and turning the strike over.
Despite coming up against an unfancied match-up, the duo added 40 runs in the first 25 balls of their partnership before Kohli’s attempt to hit out resulted in him getting a top edge to backward point.
Mayank Yadav’s spell from hell
If you thought Mayank Yadav was fast in the previous game, he was faster on Tuesday, consistently powering past the 150kmph mark, and clocking even as high as 156.7. But even before he could burst through the middle over, Faf du Plessis’s decision to take a tight single after hitting straight to Devdutt Padikkal at mid wicket, brought about his downfall.
Patidar cut loose briefly once Mayank was taken out of the attack and gave some momentum and hope to RCB’s chase, but Mayank Yadav returned to bowl his final over and hurried Patidar on a pull and sent him back to the pavilion. The pacer delivered 16 dot balls and returned figures of 3 for 14.
Mahipal Lomror tries his best but RCB remains short by 28 runs against LSG.
Mahipal Lomror, who was brought in as the Impact Substitute in the 13th over of the chase, by when it seemed liked LSG were way ahead in the contest. However, the southpaw launched an attack in which he picked up 32 runs off his first 10 deliveries. He smacked two sixes and a boundary off Yash Thakur in the 16th over and then followed up with another boundary and a six off Naveen ul Haq in the next to keep contest slightly alive. However, LSG kept chipping away with wickets at regular intervals.
Rawat and Dinesh Karthik fell to bouncers while Mayank Dagar was run out by a fiery direct hit from long off by Pooran. Lomror too eventually departed in the 18th over, smashing straight to long off, and effectively ending RCB’s chase. Mohammed Siraj hit a couple of sixes but RCB eventually fell 28 runs short of LSG’s total.
Presentations and Road Ahead.
Faf Du Plessis the Loosing skipper said :
“Spot on (dropped catches cost us). Two very good players, QdK when was on 25-30 and Nicky P was on 2, 60-65 extra runs, mistakes like that can cost you in the IPL. It is the new action you haven’t faced before, and if they have pace then you need time to get used to it (about Mayank),”
“But his ability to control length and have accuracy is impressive. I didn’t think we were very good with our bowling especially in the powerplay, Maxwell brought it back and there were some pleasing signs in the death overs. You need two guys to bat through and get a partnership which we were not able to do. We need the strong characters in the dressing room to put their hand up,”
KL Rahul the winning skipper said :
“Overall a really good performance. The wicket was a bit tricky, there was some help for the seamers, it was slightly on the sticky side. We got off to a really good start, Quinton gave us a really good start,”
“By the time the opposition found out what were the lengths to hit, we had gotten away with the game and had probably 10-15 runs ahead of what we needed to be. That’s what helped us in the back end though they bowled really well in the back end,”
“The chat was very simple – there’s a bit help in the wicket, try and use the wicket, not go to the yorkers really quickly. Here in Chinnaswamy, the pressure can come on you really quickly with one or two fours/sixes in an over, just changes everything. It’s important to stay calm and keep trusting that the wicket will help us. One ball hit me really hard, so happy to see Mayank bowl the way he’s been bowling in the last couple of games,”
“He’s quietly patiently waited for two seasons in the dug-out, missed out last year because of injury unfortunately. But he’s been in Bombay with the physios working really hard. He understands that bowling 155 is not easy and in a young age, he’s had a few injuries,”
“He’s really professional in looking after his body, it’s really good to see and has a great temperament. Enjoying seeing him bowl from probably 20 yards behind the stumps, that’s where I’d like to be when he’s bowling,”
“I am always tempted to bowl first, that’s generally been the trend in T20 cricket. If I have a look at our record, it speaks differently. The good thing that I am doing is losing the toss, that really helps. If we get bowled out or if the opposition blasts us out of the game, then there’s something to go back and think about. If we are doing most things right … it’s okay to lose sometimes, the opposition is also going to turn up on the ground and want to win,”
“We don’t really stress too much about it. The first game was one such game, we tried really hard, they bowled better than us. We have bounced back really well. This is how we generally play our cricket. Powerplay bowling has always been a question mark for us in the two seasons that we have played, trying to fix that. We’ve gone spin this game, very obvious match-up against RCB which worked. We’ll try to find ways to get those wickets in the powerplay,”
Mayank Yadav won Player of the Match for 3 wickets in the match said :
“Feel really good, two Player of the Match awards in two matches. I am happier that we won both the matches. My goal is to play for the country. I feel this is just the start. I enjoyed Cameron Green’s wicket the most. There are a lot of factors to bowl quick – diet, sleep, training. I am focusing a lot on my diet and recovery – ice bath,”