Kolkata: After Lucknow Super Giants’ were given a second consecutive defeat in IPL 2024 through an eight-wicket thrashing at the hands of Kolkata Knight Riders, captain KL Rahul admitted the defeat was a hammering for his side and added the immediate task for see where they have gone wrong.
“A tough day; a proper hammering. Every team in the IPL goes through a game like that. Not going to sit too much and think about it. Will go back, work out where we went wrong and bounce back better.”
“Not panicking but you can’t put your feet up and hope results go your way. We have to figure out where you are going wrong. We will have a few difficult conversations. The last couple of games, we have not been able to get more than 160 and that is something to think about, and see how we can get to the 180-200 run mark,” said Rahul after the match ended.
Sunday’s game saw LSG stumble a lot on a two-paced pitch and never gave the feeling of momentum being firmly in their hands with the bat. Rahul himself began strong in power-play, but became conservative in the middle-overs before falling to Andre Russell. It took Nicholas Pooran’s late burst of 45 off 32 balls, laced with two fours and four sixes, to take LSG to 161/7.
With the ball, left-arm fast-bowler Mohsin Khan was the lone bright spark for LSG, picking up 2-29 in his four overs, while rest of his colleagues conceded runs aplenty via wayward bowling, including giving away 22 extras. Rahul admitted the two-paced pitch got better to bat on in the second innings.
“I think it was the other way round. The ball started nipping around a lot more after the lights came on. Can’t say we played bad shots but the shots we played, we did not execute well. Kept losing wickets in bunches and we left about 30 runs out there.”
“If we kept wickets in our hand, and had one of our top three-four bat through, we could have got a lot more runs. That is where I think we lost the game. With the ball, it was nipping around. We got a few wickets but leaked too many boundaries.”
West Indies fast-bowling sensation Shamar Joseph didn’t have a memorable IPL debut, right from conceding 22 runs in his opening over to returning with figures of 0/47 in in his four overs.
“That was a positive, he was bowling very quick. First game of the IPL, you can get excited, and Shamar was very excited and just wanted to bowl fast, sprayed the ball around a bit but that can happen with anyone.”
“The positive was he was bowling very quick and he got the ball to nip around. He hit some good areas but obviously he has to work on his consistency and the choice of balls he bowls,” stated Rahul.
LSG, at fourth place in the points table with six points, have a four-day breather before hosting defending champions Chennai Super Kings at the Ekana Cricket Stadium on April 19.
–IANS