Krunal's all-round display helps LSG brush Sunrisers aside
Lucknow Super Giants 127 for 5 (Rahul 35, Krunal 34, Rashid 2-23) beat Sunrisers Hyderabad 121 for 8 (Tripathi 34, Anmolpreet 31, Krunal 3-18, Mishra 2-23) by five wickets
On a slow, low and dying black-soil surface at the Ekana Cricket Stadium, Lucknow Super Giants' spinners starved Sunrisers Hyderabad of runs to set up a five-wicket win.
After winning the toss, Aiden Markram opted to bat but his side could post only 121 for 8. Super Giants were without Mark Wood (flu) and Avesh Khan (injured) but Krunal Pandya, Ravi Bishnoi and Amit Mishra ensured their absence wasn't felt. The trio picked up 6 for 57 in their combined 12 overs, with Krunal inflicting the most damage with the wickets of Mayank Agarwal, Anmolpreet Singh and Markram.
KL Rahul and Kyle Mayers kicked off the chase by adding 35 in 4.3 overs. Mayers and Deepak Hooda fell in back-to-back overs but Krunal hit a 23-ball 34 to kill the game. When Nicholas Pooran hit the winning six, Super Giants still had four overs left.
Impact Player strategy
Sunrisers started with three overseas players - Markram, Harry Brook and Adil Rashid - giving themselves the option to use either Heinrich Klaasen in case of a collapse, or one of Marco Jansen or Fazalhaq Farooqi to beef up their bowling in the second half. At 55 for 4 after nine overs, it looked like they would have to bring in Klaasen. He was padded up in the dugout but Sunrisers didn't lose another wicket until the 18th over. Eventually, Farooqi replaced Rahul Tripathi at the start of the chase.
Super Giants followed a more straightforward route, swapping Mishra with Ayush Badoni after the 19th over of the first innings.
Krunal's three-for dents Sunrisers
Just after two overs of seam, it was clear that this pitch was tailormade for spinners. Rahul duly brought Krunal on in the third over, and the left-arm spinner had Mayank Agarwal chipping one to extra-cover. Anmolpreet Singh and Rahul Tripathi took some time to get used to the slowness of the surface, and then hit four fours in eight balls to take the side to 43 for 1 at the end of the powerplay.
Krunal, though, dragged them back by dismissing Anmolpreet and Markram off successive balls. Anmolpreet was trapped lbw by a quicker one and Markram done in by turn. Playing his first game of the season, Markram looked to drive a full ball only to get beaten and have his off stump uprooted.
In the next over, the ninth of the innings, Bishnoi set Brook up nicely. After bowling two googlies, he anticipated Brook's advance down the track and slipped in a wide legbreak. Brook did exactly what the bowler anticipated, ended up nowhere near the pitch of the ball, and was stumped by some distance.
Sunrisers struggle to break away
While Tripathi and Washington Sundar ensured Sunrisers didn't lose another wicket for the next seven overs, the scoreboard moved at a glacial pace - just two boundaries came from overs 7 to 16. Tripathi tried to ramp Yash Thakur in the 18th over but failed to clear Mishra, who dived full-length to his left at short third to take the catch. Mishra picked up two himself in the next over, tossing the ball up to Washington and Rashid and having them caught down the ground. Only Abdul Samad's unbeaten 21 off 10, which included two sixes off Jaydev Unadkat in the 20th over, took Sunrisers past a run a ball.
Rahul, Krunal boss the chase
With Quinton de Kock available, there was some intrigue over whether he or Mayers would open the innings alongside Rahul. But Super Giants stuck with the same batting line-up, leaving de Kock out to the surprise of many. And even if Mayers couldn't repeat his heroics of the previous two games, he and Rahul gave the side a breezy start.
Farooqi had Mayers pulling one straight to deep square leg in the fifth over, and from the other end, Bhuvneshwar Kumar took a low, one-handed return catch to his left to send Hooda back. But Super Giants had the advantage of knowing their target.
Krunal joined Rahul at the end of the powerplay, and without taking much risk, the pair picked up a boundary in each of the next five overs. Krunal was the aggressor during the third-wicket stand of 55 in 6.2 overs, scoring at a strike rate of 147.82. Super Giants reached 100 in the 13th over before Krunal nicked Umran Malik behind. Rashid then had Rahul and Romario Shepherd lbw off successive deliveries, but the result was a formality by then.