Hyderabad’s unimpressive start to the 15th edition of the Indian T20 Cricket League 2022 persisted on Monday as despite their hard work throughout the Match No 12, Lucknow managed to walk away with a 12-run victory at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai.
The second consecutive defeat for the Kane Williamson-led Hyderabad team kept them at the bottom of the Indian T20 Cricket League 2022 points table, wherein Lucknow were placed at 5th spot with 2 wins and a defeat so far giving them 4 points and a Net Run Rate of 0.193.
Hyderabad captain Kane Williamson did not sound too disappointed with the outcome — overall their 13th defeat in last 16 matches starting from the 2021 edition — as his side played better cricket than their listless and uninspired performance in their tournament opener against Rajasthan.
“(It was a) much better performance from the last outing. Our powerplay bowling was good with three wickets,” Williamson was appreciative of his side which remained in the contest almost till the end, but still lacked the knockout punch to topple Lucknow, who had their moments in the game.
After putting in Lucknow to bat on a challenging surface at the Wankhede Stadium, Williamson made the right move of introducing off-spinner Washington Sundar as the second new-ball bowler. The India and former Bangalore spinner Sundar did not disappoint, dismissing the dangerous and in-form Lucknow batsmen Quinton de Kock and Evin Lewis on identical scores of 1.
Romario Shepherd got rid of Manish Pandey (11) on the penultimate ball of the 5th over to leave Lucknow reeling at 27/3, desperate to stop the flow of wickets, something that they managed to do via an 87-run stand between captain KL Rahul and the in-form middle-order batsman Deepak Hooda.
Both Rahul and Hooda brought up their respective half-centuries — first for the Lucknow captain in the tournament whereas second for the latter — as their association powered the comeback for their Indian T20 Cricket League 2022 side.
From a precarious position of 27/3 in the powerplay, the 87-run stand between Rahul and Hooda set the platform for an impressive total of 169/7 in their 20 overs — a total which eventually proved to be beyond the reach of the 2016 title winners Hyderabad.
The Lucknow side also got a late impetus from their young and extremely confident batsman Ayush Badoni, who hammered 3 fours to make a rapid 12-ball 19.
For the Hyderabad side, Washington Sundar returned with an impressive spell of 4-0-28-2 whereas the left-arm Tamil Nadu bowler T Natarajan also managed to make it a memorable game for himself, recording figures of 4-0-26-2. While Romario Shepherd took 2/42 from his 4 overs, the right-arm express bowler Umran Malik had a forgettable game returning with 3-0-39-0.
The Man of the Match for the contest played on Monday night, the right-arm Lucknow fast bowler Avesh Khan recorded the best figures for any bowler in the match: 4-0-24-4. He accounted for the New Zealand and Hyderabad captain Kane Williamson on the third ball of the 4th over, and struck again in the 6th over to dismiss Hyderabad opener Abhishek Sharma.
Rahul Tripathi (44) and Aiden Markram tried to provide stability to the Hyderabad innings with a 44-run stand for the 3rd wicket and another 48-run stand between Nicholas Pooran and Washington Sundar later in the innings kept the Hyderabad side on the track.
However, Avesh Khan came back in the ending stage of the game wherein Hyderabad needed 27 runs from 17 balls and 6 wickets intact. But Hyderabad surprisingly failed to make that many, finishing at 157/9 and falling short by a margin they would have think later on that it was achievable.
Jason Holder, who was playing his first match of the tournament for Lucknow, did not get enough time with the bat — he still scored a 3-ball 8 not out with one six — but he showcased his class yet again, taking 4-0-34-3. Krunal Pandya took 2/27 from his 4 overs.
A confident Lucknow will next face Delhi in Match No 15 on April 7 whereas Hyderabad will be desperate to end their losing streak against a side which has usually dominated the bilateral affairs against them, but have already lost three matches in a row this year.
The four-time title winners and defending champions this year Chennai have their backs pressed against the wall and are in an urgent need of a victory.
Devarchit Varma is a cricket writer and journalist with an experience of more than a decade, having worked at Hindustan Times (newspaper) and CricketCountry (website). Along with covering international and domestic cricket, he has also interviewed several current and former top players such as Rohit Sharma, Steve Smith, Dale Steyn, Michael Hussey, Jacques Kallis, Brendon McCullum, Shane Watson, Lasith Malinga and many more. He has also worked in other beats as a journalist in Bollywood (Reliance BigOye) and IT (SiliconIndia) industries.
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