The DC bowlers – led by Kuldeep Yadav – tripped up LSG’s top-order early before Ayush Badoni counter-attacked successfully. LSG’s 167/7 was the highest total for a team after losing their first seven wickets for under 100 in IPL history. But this big effort was for nothing in the end. Kuldeep Yadav provided the inspiration on his return from injury before a sparkling half-century on IPL debut from Australia’s Jake Fraser-McGurk saw them reel in their target with 11 balls to spare.
Kuldeep Yadav what Delhi Capitals missed in the middle overs when he was out due to injury as Jake Fraser-McGurk announced his arrival in the IPL with a 55 off 35 – with 3 fours and 5 sixes – as Delhi Capitals handed Lucknow Super Giants their first defeat in the IPL in a game where the latter posted a 160-plus total.
Pitch and Toss
“We are in the land of the Super Giants, one thing we have got here is a giant boundary – 73 meters on one side and that’s lot bigger than normal, 80 meters in the corner/pockets, other side is 66 meters. As a bowler you will be so happy to see such an expansive field,” says an ecstatic Graeme Swann. “This ground has some of the longest boundaries and that’s what you want to see with the kind of power that the batters exhume nowadays. As a spinner I don’t think you would like this pitch as there’s lot more grass on this surface.
Grass being left on the pitches now to ensure they don’t crumble and also because India have discovered so many new fast bowlers. All of them are making the ball fly. Every team are encouraging the groundsman to put a little more grass. The ball will come on to the bat nicely and if you are a good player, you can make use of the pace and bang the ball around. We can see lot more runs despite the big boundaries,” reckons Sunil Gavaskar.
Lucknow Super Giants skipper KL Rahul won the toss and chose to bowl with only one change as Mayank Yadav was replaced by Arshad Khan.
Delhi Capitals batting first made two changes as Mukesh Kumar and Kuldeep Yadav was back for them in the playing 11 from injuries.
KL Rahul rules early exchanges as Left-arm match-up joy for DC in the early overs
LSG have a tried-and-trusted template for batting first and looked to be well on track at the end of the powerplay. Quinton de Kock took a brace of fours off the opening over, Rahul’s third ball was emphatically thrashed over cover for a flat six, and although Khaleel Ahmed hit back to remove de Kock and Devdutt Padikkal – who extended his run of single-figure scores in an LSG shirt to five – there was no sense of panic in the stands (although things might have been different if Khaleel had held on to a sharp return catch off Stoinis’ first ball).
Rahul responded by punching Khaleel back down the ground for four, before finding the boundary twice more off Mukesh Kumar as LSG ended the powerplay comfortably on 57 for 2. Ominously for DC, Rahul’s 30 off 14 represented his joint-highest six-over score for LSG.
Delhi Capitals might be languishing lower in the points table, but Khaleel Ahmed finds himself joint-third on the bowling charts for the season. He was instrumental in setting up the team’s only other win this season – against CSK – and was once again at hand in rocking LSG’s top-order. Khaleel had the rub of the green as the umpire ruled in his favour for an LBW appeal after Quinton de Kock missed a full ball on the leg stump. The left-hander’s stay was cut short by umpire’s call. In his next over, he had Devdutt Padikkal out leg before too.
Kuldeep Yadav back with a bang-bang with his magic after the Powerplay.
Kuldeep Yadav ,the left-arm wrist spinner lured Marcus Stoinis into a big, risky heave in his first over. The result was a leading edge to Ishant Sharma at backward point. LSG were left stunned just the next ball when he bowled a fabulous googly to an unsuspecting Nicholas Pooran and knocked back his stumps. KL Rahul, who had shown some intent early on, became Kuldeep Yadav’s third wicket in the 10th over. It needed DC to review but Rishabh Pant was convinced of an edge, and was rewarded for it.
LSG regressed further, slipping from 80 for 5 in 10 overs to 94 for 7 in 13 overs.
Capitals’ premier wrist spinner Kuldeep Yadav had missed their last three games with a groin injury but he immediately grabbed the LSG innings by the throat. Stoinis was unable to make the most of his early reprieve, slicing a googly to backward point to give Kuldeep Yadav a wicket with his third ball. The next delivery was even better, another expertly disguised wrong’un duping LSG’s leading run-scorer Pooran, who played all around the ball to lose his off stump.
In his second over, Kuldeep Yadav snuffed out Rahul’s punchy knock, too – a review confirming a thin edge behind as the LSG captain attempted to cut a quicker, wide delivery. With impact sub Deepak Hooda top-edging tamely to point and Krunal gloving a Mukesh bouncer behind, LSG had slumped to 94 for 7 and were seemingly in deep trouble.
Badoni to the rescue as LSG scores 167 for 7 after 20 overs.
The 24-year-old resurrected LSG’s essay with an unbeaten 55 off 35. He had Arshad Khan for company in an eighth-wicket partnership worth 73 off the last seven overs. Badoni took on DC’s death-overs pacers Mukesh Kumar, Khaleel and Ishant Sharma as 39 runs came off the last three overs. Kuldeep Yadav meanwhile finished with figures of 3 for 20, including 10 dot balls.
The LSG innings went six full overs without a boundary as the middle order crumbled, but Badoni and Arshad steadily resurrected their chances. Badoni ended the drought with back-to-back fours off Mukesh, pulled fine and slapped over backward point, but otherwise focused on hoovering up ones and twos against the spin of Kuldeep Yadav and Axar Patel.
With the return of pace for the 18th, Badoni decided it was time to go. Khaleel was duly smoked over deep midwicket for six, before Arshad followed suit by muscling his first boundary over mid-off. The No. 9 was dropped by Shaw off the final ball of the over, to compound Khaleel’s pain. Badoni lofted and then swept Mukesh on the way to a 31-ball fifty in the 19th, as the eighth-wicket pair successfully drove LSG above the 160-mark. This time, however, the magic deserted them.
Fraser-McGurk continues stunning rise
David Warner’s dismissal in the fourth over did nothing to DC’s run-chase as their 22-year-old Jake Fraser-McGurk marked his IPL debut with an impressive show. He and Prithvi Shaw went on a boundary-hitting spree, collecting 15 off Arshad Khan and 17 off Krunal Pandya to take DC to 62/1 in 6 overs.
Ravi Bishnoi pushed DC back with a one-run seventh over that included the wicket of Shaw – caught at deep midwicket. This brought along a period of lull as DC managed just 13 runs in 4 overs until the halfway stage, without a boundary scored. Rishabh Pant then turned it around by going after Bishnoi in the 11th over, giving him the charge for a straight six and a four. The DC captain also went after Stoinis before Fraser-McGurk dwarfed the equation by hitting three successive sixes off Krunal – over deep midwicket, deep extra cover and long off.
It is only six months since Fraser-McGurk grabbed headlines worldwide by breaking AB de Villiers’ record for the fastest List A hundred when he reached the mark off just 29 balls while batting for South Australia. Remarkably, that was his first century in professional cricket, but he enjoyed a breakthrough summer that culminated in him being capped during Australia’s ODI series against West Indies. He hit his third ball on debut for four, his fourth for six, and then was out to his fifth.
Coming in at No. 3 in Lucknow, following the dismissal of David Warner by Yash Thakur, he stayed true to first principles. His second ball was swatted insouciantly off the front foot over midwicket – a shot his DC coach, Ricky Ponting, would doubtless have enjoyed – and he then launched an even bigger hit over wide long-on from his fifth.
Another slash for four took him to 16 off seven (with three scoring shots) before the arrival of the LSG spinners to present a new challenge. A slowdown duly followed, with nine runs coming from his next 16 balls. But just when the game appeared to be back in the balance, Fraser-McGurk let loose against Krunal Pandya, carting him over midwicket, extra cover and long-off for three consecutive sixes that effectively put a nail in the home side’s chances.
Rishabh Pant leads from the front
Amid Capitals’ struggles, Pant has carried a particularly heavy burden: captain, wicketkeeper and star batter, and all this after more than a year out of the game after a car crash. His anguished chat with umpire Rohan Pandit during the LSG innings, having unsuccessfully tried to review a wide – Pant seeming to say he hadn’t reviewed it in the first place – summed up how things have been going.
But after Ravi Bishnoi dismissed Shaw, via a superb diving catch in the deep from Nicholas Pooran, Pant played an astute hand. After ticking along initially, and with Fraser-McGurk becalmed, he skipped out to his 12th delivery to launch Bishnoi down the ground for an enormous straight six, following it up with a smash through the covers for four. Two more boundaries came in Marcus Stoinis’ over, including an audacious reverse-scoop, to keep DC up with the rate before Fraser-McGurk unleashed.
The requirement was below a run a ball by the time Fraser-McGurk carved to deep third and although Pant was stumped in the next over, charging at Bishnoi, the hard work had been done.
No faint hopes for LSG as DC romp home by 6 wickets.
In the space of five deliveries, Naveen Ul-Haq and Bishnoi dismissed both the batters and ended the chase-defining stand of 77 runs. But at this point, DC needed just 20 off 27 balls which Shai Hope and Tristan Stubbs saw through comfortably in 18.1 overs.
Presentations and Road Ahead.
KL Rahul the loosing skipper said : If I want to be harsh, I think we were 15-20 runs short, we got off to a good start, we could have capitalized and got 180. There was a bit of help for the seamers, the odd ball kept low. Kuldeep made its use (and got those wickets.) The new guys when they come in, it’s pretty unknown for us. He (Jake Fraser-McGurk) hit the ball well, credit to him. We always walk in with the same mindset, want to hit the right areas.
We got Warner in the powerplay, got a couple of wickets after the powerplay. The set batters – Pant and McGurk took the game away from us after that dropped catch. We travel tomorrow and play an afternoon game (on Sunday). That’s how the schedule goes, need to turn up, could be tough during Indian summers. In hindsight you can always wonder you could have done something different.
There wasn’t much spin after Axar’s over, so I thought Pooran could have put some pressure on the opposition, if he was set. He would have been dangerous, but credit to Kuldeep for getting him out. He (Mayank Yadav) is feeling good, he looks good, but we don’t want to rush him. We need to protect his body, he’s itching to go. Need to make sure that he’s hundred percent (fit) before he comes back.
Rishabh Pant the winning skipper said : Little relief, we wanted a win badly. I was talking to the boys saying we need to think like champions, we need to keep fighting hard. (On bowling) We have phases where we are not up to the mark, some individuals have to take responsibility for that. However, we stick together as a group.
Some things you can control, some things we can’t. (On team combination) I think we are getting closer to the right XI, but we’ve had so many injuries in this group. However, you can’t keep complaining about that. (On Fraser-McGurk) Hopefully, we’ve found our new number 3, haven’t thought too much about it. Hope he can continue.
Kuldeep Yadav Player of the Match for 3 wickets said : Was tough when I wasn’t fit. Got injured first game and was difficult to see the team struggling in the middle overs. Credit goes to Patrick (Farhart) to maintain my fitness and get me ready quickly. All three were important wickets, it was crucial to get wickets in the middle overs to control the run rate.
I liked the first and second wicket, I have played a lot against Pooran and the execution for that was right. I was clear with my plans, just the length matters for me as a spinner. Very clear and confident with my skills. Whenever I feel the DRS call is 50/50, I try to push for it but when it is more 60/40 then I tend to listen to Rishabh. As a bowler, you obviously want to take the DRS whenever possible. We’ve got 2 reviews, so obviously one is for me (laughs off).
LSGs home domination is curbed. Their streak of defending totals comes to an end. The hunters have been hunted, and they have been stung by the new, potent venom from South Australia sprinkled with a bit of fearless bite from the leader of the team that features three tigers on their emblem. Chasing 167, Delhi didnt get the best of starts as Warner copped a blow to his wrists and then chopped one back onto his stumps.
However, that brought the youngster Jake Fraser-McGurk to the crease and he got off the mark with two sixes in the IPL. Fraser-McGurk was well supported by Prithvi Shaw who scored six fours in the powerplay, but holed out trying to attack Ravi Bishnoi. There came a lull post the powerplay as LSG slipped in four quiet overs, with Bishnoi leading the charge. Fraser-McGurk was struggling for timing, and the skipper Rishabh Pant took the mantle on himself. He attacked Bishnoi for a four and six, and that titled the complexation of the game.
Couple overs later, Fraser-McGurk hit a hat-trick of sixes against Krunal Pandya, and the next over from Yash Thakur also went for plenty of runs. The 22-year-old notched up a fifty on IPL debut, but couldn’t stay till the end as he sliced one to deep point off Naveen-ul-Haq.
Rishabh Pant played a real captain’s knock to take the pressure off the debutant, but he too couldn’t stay till the end as he was stumped dancing down the track against Bishnoi. However, DC never lost Hope and they managed to get through the line with almost two overs to spare. Rishabh Pant and co. are back to winning ways with Kuldeep Yadav leading the charge straight away, the LSG juggernaut have been stopped.
Chasing a target at the Ekana Stadium against LSG! Many teams with some of the most skilled and experienced batters have failed this gauntlet as the tracks get sluggish and the bowlers offer them no pace. However, Delhi Capitals today proved that a potent concoction made with the exuberance of youth and the perennially fearless mindset of Rishabh Pant is what is needed to rattle Lucknow on their own turf. A great game for the neutral fan, makes the IPL table a bit more competitive.
LSG have just a day’s gap to travel to Kolkata where they take on KKR in the afternoon game on Sunday (April 14). DC travel to Ahmedabad to take on Shubman Gill’s side on Friday (April 17).