KATHMANDU, April 2 – Lucknow Super Giants beat Delhi Capitals by 50 runs in Match 3 of TATA IPL 2023 at the Bharat Ratna Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Cricket Stadium in Lucknow.
Kyle Mayers shone with the bat on his IPL debut with a scintillating 73 from 38 balls, while Mark Wood shone with the ball with a fiery spell of 5/14 to help LSG win by 50 runs.
Chasing 194, David Warner and Prithvi Shaw brought DC into a flyer as they fielded crisp drives, powerful jerks and silky moves to score 40 in the first four overs.
KL Rahul then brought Mark Wood into the attack and breathed fire as he cleaned Shaw with a beauty. And then he disturbed the wood again on the next ball to send Mitchell Marsh back with another quick delivery to get LSG back in the game. DC reached 47/2 at the end of the Powerplay.
Wood continued to pick up the pace and collected his third wicket as he bounced off Sarfaraz Khan, who tried to take an upper cut but was caught on a thin leg.
Things slowed down dramatically for DC and Rossouw then pumped momentum in the innings when he went after Bishnoi and hit a pair of fours and a six in the tenth to lead the visitors to 75/3 at half-court.
However, Bishnoi rallied to dismiss Rossouw on his next turn and then sent Rovman Powell back to shake up DC.
Warner, who held strong at one end, then unleashed his 45-ball fifties while pressing the throttle button to score 15 from Unadkat. But the required rate had exceeded 16 at that time. The pressure kept mounting and wickets kept falling as Avesh took out Aman Khan and Warner 56 (48) in the same over.
With 81 needed from four overs, DC required a miracle that didn’t happen as Wood returned to dismiss Axar Patel (6 for 11!) and Chetak Sakariya to complete his five-wicket haul, the first of TATA IPL 2023 and help LSG to win by 50 runs.
Earlier, Delhi Capitals captain David Warner won the toss and chose to play. They named Aman Khan, Pravin Dubey, Manish Pandey, Lalit Yadav and Abhishek Porel as his replacements. LSG named Yash Thakur, K Gowtham, Daniel Sams, Prerak Mankad and Amit Mishra as their replacements.
DC pacemakers Khaleel Ahmed and Mukesh Kumar started well as they found a touch of movement and bowled with discipline to give away just one four in the first three overs. The pressure was building, Rahul tried to free it with a six from Chetan Sakariya, but the latter struck to get caught on deep square leg one ball later. DC could have had two wickets inside on the power play, but Khaleel Ahmed floored Mayers at third man short when he was on 14. The away team restricted LSG to 30/1 on the Power Play.
Mayers finally upped the ante when he crushed a pair of sixes off Mukesh Kumar and then went after Axar Patel to hit a four and six to give the innings momentum. He hit one over the deep square leg of Kuldeep Yadav to get his fifty off just 28 balls in his IPL debut.
Mayers continued to dish out sixes as he hit two more against Axar and then one against Kuldeep, but against the tide of play, Kuldeep struck when he had Hooda pinned deep. One brought two when Axar cleaned out Mayers for 73 (38) with a brilliant delivery that converted miles.
Khaleen then came back to catch Stoinis for 12(10) to dent LSG. Nicholas Pooran arrived and took the aggressive route and hammered a four and a six in the same over to make sure the pressure didn’t build.
Pooran (36 for 21) and Krunal Pandya fought back to tie up a 48-run, 26-ball clash. And Ayush Badoni then provided the final flourish with a cameo 18-run off 7-ball, including two sixes in the final over. K Gowtham was then introduced as the Impact Player by LSG and finished the innings in style with a six to make it 22 over the last over to propel LSG to 193/6.
DC brought in Aman Khan as Impact Player in place of Khaleel Ahmed in the 20th of the first inning.
