IPL 2023: ‘It looked like they weren’t going to mishit anything’, says Parnell on Stoinis and Pooran’s blitz

Bengaluru: After suffering a thrilling one-wicket loss, Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) pacer Wayne Parnell said that the way Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) duo of Marcus Stoinis and Nicolas Pooran batted in the run chase against them, it never looked like they would mishit anything.

After LSG were reduced to 23/3 in four overs, Stoinis (65 off 30) and Pooran (62 off 19) played blistering knocks and helped their side pull off a sensational win.

With one needed off one ball in the last over, Harshal Patel tried to run out Ravi Bishnoi, who had ventured out of his crease, at the non-striker’s end but he missed the stumps. Avesh Khan then missed his swing as Harshal finally delivered the last ball and the keeper Dinesh Karthik fumbled allowing Bishnoi and Avesh to go for a leg-bye, taking Lucknow to a thrilling last-ball victory against RCB in an IPL 2023 match on Monday night at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium.

“It was pretty tense towards the end. Unfortunately, we were on the wrong side of the last ball, but credit to Lucknow. They chased it down really well. A couple of the guys came in and it looked like they weren’t going to mishit anything. That was probably the difference in the game,” Parnell said in a post-match press conference.

“At Chinnaswamy, chasing is something that teams look to do as the wicket gets better under lights. That was the case this (Monday) evening as well.

When Stoinis played the way he played, that allowed guys to come in and take the game on early. Nicholas Pooran did that as well. Some very clean hitting and then a couple of wickets at the backend to kind of bring us back. But, if you look back, if we had an extra 10 runs, that could have been the difference. I still felt it was a decent total, but we had to execute some things,” he added.

Kohli was at his aggressive best in attacking pacers in power-play while making 61 off 44 balls. On the other hand, Du Plessis was at 33 off 31 balls and looked scratchy but he found his timing to be unbeaten on 79 from 46 while Maxwell smacked 59 off just 29 balls as RCB posted a mammoth 212/2 in 20 overs.

Speaking on the RCB batting approach, Parnell said: “The wicket was a little bit slow early on. I think that was the same wicket that we used against MI. You could see that with Faf Du Plessis and Virat Kohli, both being stroke players, mistimed a couple of balls. Under lights, it tends to skid on a bit more.”

“Even though they started slowly, Virat played a brilliant knock and having Faf go all the way through, that’s something that any coach would be happy about. From the bowling point of view, we may be let our batters down a little bit,” he added.

RCB is currently in seventh place in the standings with two losses and a win in three games. Du Plessis-led side will next take on Delhi Capitals at M Chinnaswamy Stadium.

–IANS