IPL 2023, PBKS vs LSG | Who said what ft. Marcus Stoinis, KL Rahul
KL Rahul praised the batting unit for their performance
|(IPL)
Lucknow Super Giants sprung to the second spot on the points table with 56-run win over Punjab Kings in a run fest played in Mohali. Marcus Stoinis revealed that he likes to finish off the innings and the pitch suited his bowling while KL Rahul praised the batting unit for their performance.
Lucknow Super Giants outplayed Punjab Kings in Mohali on Friday with a margin of 56 runs in a high-scoring contest, Batting first, Kyle Mayers and Marcus Stoinis scored half-centuries. Mayers scored swashbuckling 54 from 24 balls while Stoinis smashed 72 runs with a strike rate of 180. Walking in to chase, LSG always looked short of the target with the required run rate getting out of hand. Atharva Taide played a resilient knock of 66 runs but none of the other batters played an innings to support him take PBKS over the victory line.
Along with scoring a half-century, Stoinis also picked a crucial wicket of Shikhar Dhawan but had to get out of the field after sustaining a finger injury. The all-rounder revealed that he enjoyed batting in the middle and the pitch also suited his bowling.
The finger is alright. It is better now. We will get scans done. We were joking about the difference between this wicket and the one at our home. Was just trying to build partnerships. Ayush got off to a flier as well. I do like to take responsibility of batting in the middle order and finishing it off. I have batted everywhere in my career. I was swinging a few in the nets. So, they got excited and gave me the new ball. No one loves to bowl on a flat one. The home wicket suits me more as my change of pace helps me there.
Team skipper KL Rahul praised the batting unit of the side stating that the openers set the tone for the team and the rest of the batters continued the momentum throughout the innings.
It is so against the T20 trend. Can't put a finger on it. Happy that we got the win. Every game from now on would be very important. We had a break after the last game. We came back fresher after that. We were clear as to how to bat. When you see such wickets, you get excited as batters. Getting 250 speaks highly of how we batted. You are familiar with what you can expect. Just being familiar to wickets helps. We always talk about setting the tone at the start. We had guys like Mayers, Stoinis. Badoni has been batting well. Hooda as well.
After the result, PBKS captain Shikhar Dhawan admitted that they leaked too many runs and his tactic to play with an extra bowler backfired.
We gave away too many runs. I felt that it (ball) didn't come on quickly to the bat and it went straight to the fielder (on his dismissal). I felt my strategy to play with the extra bowler backfired. We missed a spinner today. It's a learning for me. Livi (Livingstone) and even Sam (Curran) were there, so we couldn't send him (SRK) ahead.
PBKS batting coach Wasim Jaffer backed the bowlers saying they will come back stronger in the game and also suggested that they should have opted to bowl slower balls after being smacked for so many runs.
Don't think there are any serious concerns (about the bowling attack) because they had thrice defended scores in tough conditions," opined Jaffer in the post-match press conference. "Be it against Mumbai or Rajasthan, even in the earlier Kolkata game. The bowling unit has always performed for us this season. Today was one of those days when everything clicked for the opposition and we were a bit clueless. Our bowlers will come back strong.Perhaps we could have gone to Plan B a bit more. Like using the slower balls a lot more and using the longer boundary consistently. They (LSG) did this a lot more effectively and it worked for them. But again, most of their shots were clearing the boundary quite easily, so we have to give them credit for that.
