Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) skipper KL Rahul talked about the win his team registered over Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) in the 15th match of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024. He was in awe of the way young pacer Mayank Yadav performed and said that it was a good outing for his team.
Lucknow Super Giants have found their mojo in IPL 2024 as they won their second consecutive game of the tournament. They defeated Royal Challengers Bengaluru by 28 runs at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium and moved to the 4th spot in the points table of the league.
LSG had a terrific outing with the bat, thanks to the brutal innings by Quinton de Kock (81) and Nicholas Pooran (40*). Skipper KL Rahul (20) and Marcus Stoinis (24) made handy contributions as they posted a total of 181 runs on the board at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru.
With the ball, Mayank Yadav was the star for LSG as he made sure that he yet again set the stage on fire. He broke the backbone of the RCB as he removed Glenn Maxwell, Cameron Green and Rajat Patidar to return with the figures of 3/14 in his 4 overs.
Naveen-ul-Haq supported him well as he picked two wickets whereas Yash Thakur and Marcus Stoinis bagged one wicket each. Lucknow Super Giants bundled out Royal Challengers Bengaluru for 153 runs and won the game to hand the opposition their third loss of the season.
KL Rahul credited the whole team for their performance and claimed that they were 10-15 runs ahead of what they expected. He talked about keeping to the raw pace of Mayank Yadav, saying that one ball hit him hard, and also expressed his delight in the fast bowler doing well. Speaking during the post-match presentation, he explained:
“Overall a really good performance. the wicket was a bit tricky and there was some help for the seamers. Quinton got us off to a good start. We were 10-15 runs ahead of what we needed to be. The talk was about using the wicket and not the yorkers. It’s important to stay calm.
“One ball hit me really hard, so happy to see Mayank bowl the way he’s been bowling. He’s waited patiently for a year, he’s working really hard, he’s really professional, has a great temperament. Bowling first has been the trend in T20 cricket. If I have a look at our record, it speaks differently.”
We’ll try find ways to get wickets in the powerplay – KL Rahul
KL Rahul further talked about LSG’s record while defending the target, saying that he’s happy that he is losing tosses and his team is getting to bat first. He also believes that there’s room for improvement as well as they need to get wickets in power play. He added:
“The good thing I am doing is losing the toss. If we get bowled out, if the opposition blasts out, there’s something to go back and look. It’s okay to lose sometimes, the first game was one such game, we have bounced back really well.
“This is how we play our cricket. Powerplay bowling has always been a question mark, trying to fix that. We’ve gone spin this game, a very obvious match-up against RCB which worked. We’ll try to find ways to get wickets in the powerplay.”
Lucknow Super Giants will be next seen in action when they will take on Gujarat Titans on 7th April.
