After setting the IPL ablaze with a four-wicket haul in Lucknow Super Giants’ five-wicket win, seam-bowling all-rounder Shardul Thakur stressed on the need for fair pitches in the competition to provide balance between bat and ball. The 33-year-old walked away with the Player of the Match award after his figures of 4 for 34 helped restrict SRH to 190/9. “I feel bowlers get very little on this kind of pitches,” Shardul said at the post-match presentation. “Even in the last game pre-match, I said that pitches should be prepared in such a way that the game hangs in the balance for batters and bowlers. Especially after the impact player rule, it’s not fair on the bowlers if a team scores 240-250 runs.” Shardul went unsold at the auction and joined LSG only after Mohsin Khan was ruled out due to an injury.
“I had made my plans. I had signed for County Cricket if I wasn’t picked for IPL. While playing Ranji, I got a call from Zaheer Khan that we are looking at you as a potential replacement, so don’t switch yourself off. If we get you, we’ll need you to start. That was the day I got back in the IPL zone. Ups and downs keep happening. That was a bad day when I wasn’t picked in the auction.” Shardul took the wickets of Abhishek Sharma (6) and Ishan Kishan (0) in consecutive balls in his opening spell.
“Of course, some swing and what we have seen is that Travis Head and Abhishek like to take their chances, so let me take my chances as well,” he said.
LSG skipper Rishabh Pant heaved a sigh of relief after his side bounced back from the opening defeat and said as a team they tried to “focus on controllables.” Pant and his men had suffered a one-wicket loss to his former team Delhi Capitals in their opening match but returned to winning ways with a comprehensive win, set up by Shardul’s four-wicket haul and a scintillating 70 off 26 balls by Nicholas Pooran.
“Big relief, but as a team we talk about the process. It’s not about getting too high when you win and not about getting too low when you lose,” said Pant.
“As a team, we can’t focus on uncontrollables. My mentor said focus on controllables, and that is what I did,” he added, referring to former India and Chennai Super Kings captain MS Dhoni.
It was Pooran’s whirlwind 70 that powered LSG to chase down the target in 16.1 overs.
“I think we just want to give freedom to him. You got to give someone the charge when he is batting well, and he has batted brilliantly for us,” Pant said.
“The group is coming up nicely, we haven’t played our best so far, but happy to get a win.”
I’m just blessed with incredible talent: Pooran
Pooran, who slammed six sixes and six fours in his 26-ball innings, said he never worked on his bat-speed but is blessed with incredible talent.
“I don’t plan to hit sixes, try my best to get into good positions and try to time the ball. When the match-up is there, you try to execute your skills,” he said.
“The wicket was beautiful. Looking at the games before, every time you come to Hyderabad, it’s big scores here. It was a good toss to win; if you don’t lose wickets in the powerplay, you can go hard.
“I have never worked on my bat-speed, just blessed with incredible talent.” SRH skipper Pat Cummins credited the opposition bowlers for setting up the match on a wicket that was not as good as their opening match.
“It was a different wicket the other day, but we had to score quickly. They batted really well though. Still a very good wicket, this was the second-best wicket. It gripped a little bit, but it was a nice wicket,” he said.
“Every time it’s a fresh game, they bowled really well, it was very well planned. It was a pretty good effort to get to 190. You always need one person to bat throughout the innings, like Ishan (Kishan) did the other day, but they bowled really well, never let us off the hook.
“We got 8 batters, it’s about going out there and making an impact. You see things you could have done better, that could have been the difference. It’s a long competition, we will get a chance pretty quickly, so we need to move on.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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