IPL 2024: Bowlers help Lucknow Super Giants earn win against Royal Challengers Bengaluru

It may have been Virat Kohli’s 100th Twenty20 match at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru, but it was the Lucknow Super Giants who celebrated on Tuesday as they beat Royal Challengers Bengaluru by 28 runs in the 2024 Indian Premier League.

The visiting side were put in to bat first by Bengaluru captain Faf du Plessis and got off to a fiery start with openers Quinton de Kock and KL Rahul making good use of the batting powerplay. The Bengaluru fast bowlers were under attack almost immediately and Glenn Maxwell’s off-break proved to be the key as Rahul was dismissed for 20.

However, de Kock continued his charge and was assisted by Marcus Stoinis and later on Nicholas Pooran. The South African batter finished with an innings of 81 off 56 balls in what was his 22nd half-century in the IPL. Although Reece Topley managed to get the breakthrough for his team, Pooran struck three sixes off him in the penultimate over and then two more in the final over as Lucknow finished with 181/5.

The chase began in a similar fashion with Virat Kohli and du Plessis striking the ball cleanly in their 40-run partnership. However, things quickly turned around when impact substitute Manimaran Siddharth got one to spin away from Kohli and Devdutt Padikkal completed an easy catch. Then things quickly fell apart for the home side as du Plessis was run out smartly by Padikkal and Pooran caught Maxwell at mid-on in Mayank Yadav’s first over.

Rajat Patidar held on to build a partnership of 36 runs for the fifth wicket with Anuj Rawat, but the latter struggled to contribute and soon fell to Stoinis. Lucknow continued to slowly dismantle the Bengaluru tail as well, despite impact substitute Mahipal Lomror’s fightback in his 13-ball innings of 33 with three boundaries and three sixes.

In the end, the two dropped catches in Lucknow’s batting innings cost the home side as they were bowled out for 153 and fell short by 28 runs.

Turning point of the match

Chasing at the Chinnaswamy is generally the modus operandi for most teams, irrespective of whether it is the 20-over or 50-over format. That was the mindset of du Plessis as well at the toss and the plan seemed to be working with the Bengaluru openers having reached 40 for no loss.

Then in a moment of brain fog, Kohli tried to hit over cover, but ended up finding Padikkal at backward point.

But what ended up happening in the next eight balls essentially broke the back of the Bengaluru chase.

In the first ball of Yadav’s over, du Plessis tried to sneak in a quick single, but Padikkal was simply on fire with his throw and the Bengaluru captain, generally quick between the wickets, was run-out.

Three balls later, Yadav bamboozled Maxwell with his pace and the Australian could only see his top-edge land into the hands of Pooran.

Yadav would finish with figures of 3-14 in his four overs, also picking up the wickets of Cameron Green with an absolute peach of a ball and Patidar as well.

The Field’s Player of the match

While Yadav would definitely have been a certainty in any other match, it was Pooran’s innings of 40 off 21 balls and his fielding efforts that make him The Field’s Player of the Match.

The West Indian batter was given a huge reprieve very early in his innings when Rawat couldn’t hold on to the ball sent high up in the air off Topley. Had that catch been taken, things may have been different in the match.

The next time Pooran faced Topley though, the Lucknow batter smashed three massive sixes off the England bowler, including a 106 metre effort that sailed over the roof of the Chinnaswamy Stadium.

Pooran’s innings came at a time when de Kock was struggling with spin while the Bengaluru bowlers began to pull things back in the middle. It also helped Lucknow post a good-enough total to give their bowlers something to defend.

In the field though, he was like a live wire – involved in four of the ten wickets taken by Lucknow. The catch of Maxwell off a 151.1 kmph delivery needed some skill and Pooran also had to run in to complete it. The run-out of Mayank Dagar was simply a case of everything working out for Pooran – he aimed to throw the ball to the keeper, but struck the stumps instead.

‘Mistakes like that can cost you’

It was a disappointed and despondent du Plessis who walked up to talk to the broadcasters. His team are now the only side in the IPL to have lost two home games so far.

While the former South African captain was full of praises for Yadav and his fast bowling, he also remarked on the fact that it was the basics that went wrong for the Bengaluru side on Tuesday – lack of discipline in their bowling and inability to string together partnerships in the chase.

“Mistakes like that [dropping de Kock and Pooran] can really cost you. I didn’t think we were very good tonight with our bowling, especially in the powerplay. Maxwell brought us back and we bowled well in the death overs to bring us back. But [in the chase], you need two players to bat through and get partnerships, as basic as that. And we never got that, so we’re going to need the strong characters in the dressing room to put their hands up [for the next match].”

— Royal Challengers Bengaluru captain Faf du Plessis to the host broadcasters