Lucknow, Lucknow Supergiants will have to push their ‘A’ game forward to defeat the dominant Kolkata Knight Riders as the two teams clash here on Sunday heading towards the IPL playoffs March.
With a comprehensive 24-point win over Mumbai Indians taking second-placed KKR a step closer to qualifying to 14 points, KL Rahul’s LSG will be under pressure to find a way out of the threat posed by Shreyas Iyer’s side method.
With 6 wins and 4 losses from 10 games, Lucknow Supergiants are ranked third with 12 points, just one level below KKR.
With the surging Sunrisers Hyderabad just behind them in fourth place and closely followed by dangerous Chennai Super Kings and Delhi Capitals on the table, LSG will be under pressure to avoid falling into the middle of the table as the race for the top four is over . intensified.
LSG’s previous assignment at the Ekana Stadium was far from convincing as they struggled against Mumbai Indians’ 145-run chase, winning by just 4 wickets in the final match.
Skipper Rahul and all-rounder Marcus Stoinis have been key players for LSG and it remains to be seen whether South Africa veteran Quinton de Kock will return to replace young Arshin Kulkarni, who started the game in the last game. observe.
Although Nicholas Pooran has not scored a fifty since the first game, he has been scoring crucial runs, but LSG’s overall finishing ability was questioned against Mumbai Indians.
LSG seemed to encounter bad weather in the final moments that made MI really uncomfortable as they lost their wickets in a panic and finished their modest chase with some stuttering.
Ayush Badoni has struggled in this IPL and the Indian player, who has not featured for the national team, will be looking to shake off this rusty form.
LSG’s bowlers will also face a tough test as none of them have shown their true individual talents in this IPL. LSG may also lose speedster Mayank Yadav.
They have lost just 3 out of 11 games so far, making KKR’s pace unusual. CSK used a spin-friendly surface to eke out a win in Chepauk, while RR’s all-round class helped them beat KKR in a high-scoring thriller.
If anything, KKR’s bowling woes were exposed when Punjab Kings posted their highest-ever chase in the IPL, but Iyer’s side emerged strong from the setback to score Two impressive wins.
However, after beating MI on a slow wicket that exposed their batting weaknesses, KKR will aim to improve their performance with the bat significantly.
For the second time in this IPL, the KKR batsmen were in trouble when the ball failed to hit the bat and they were forced to switch gears to build a strong target.
KKR slipped to 57 in 5 games at one stage and were in danger of being bowled out for a paltry total, but Venkatesh Iyer and Manish Pandey Saved the team with an outstanding performance of 83 points.
Iyer and Pandey were forced to absorb the pressure, contain the attack and look to capitalize on good balls to set up a recovery for the team, before the bowlers worked perfectly to seal a 24-run win.
team:
Lucknow Super Giants: Quinton de Kock, KL Rahul, Deepak Hooda, Ayush Badoni, Marcus Stoinis, Nicholas Pooran, Krunal Pandya, Ravi Bishnoi, Mohsin Khan, Shamar Joseph, Yash Thakur, Manimaran Siddharth, Prerak Mankad, Arshad Khan, Krishnappa Gautam, Amit Mishra, Kyle Meyers, Ashton Turner, Matt Henry, Naveen Haq, Devdutt Padikkar, Yudvir Singh Chalak, Mayank Yadav, Asin Kulkarni.
Kolkata Knight Riders: Shreyas Iyer, KS Bharat, Rahmanullah Gubaz, Rinku Singh, Angkrish Raghuvanshi, Sherfane Rutherford, Manish Pandey, Andre Russell, Nitish Rana, Venkatesh Iyer, Anukul Roy, Ramandeep Singh, Varun Chakravarthy, Sunil Narine, Vaibhav Arora, Chetan Sakariya , Harshit Rana, Suyash Sharma, Mitchell Starc, Dushmantha Chameera, Sakib Hussain, Mujeeb Ur Rahman, Gus Atkinson, Allah Ghazanfar, Phil Salt.
The match starts at 7:30 pm (IST).
This article was generated from automated news agency feeds without modifications to the text.