Navi Mumbai, April 4 (IANS): Avesh Khan and Jason Holder shared seven wickets between themselves as Lucknow Super Giants defeated Sunrisers Hyderabad by 12 runs in match 12 of IPL 2022 at the DY Patil Stadium on Monday.
After Deepak Hooda and captain K.L Rahul hit fifties in taking Lucknow to 169/7, Avesh and Holder stopped Hyderabad from getting a move on in power-play as well as in death overs as they were eventually restricted to 157/9 in 20 overs.
Hyderabad began the chase by losing openers, captain Kane Williamson and Abhishek Sharma in power-play to Avesh. While Williamson's scoop was caught by a short fine-leg, Sharma sliced high off the toe-end of his bat to cover.
Rahul Tripathi kept Hyderabad in the hunt by slamming three fours off Andrew Tye in the eighth over. Tripathi placed his shots well in bisecting leg-side fielders with his pull and flick. But the standout shot from the over was him using the pace from Tye's short ball to ramp over the third man.
But Lucknow continued to pick wickets as Krunal Pandya removed Aiden Markram to break a 47-run partnership. Markram tried to go big over cover but didn't get the elevation as the fielder at cover timed his jump well to complete an overhead catch. Pandya returned for his final over and had Tripathi slog-sweeping straight to deep mid-wicket.
Nicholas Pooran kept Hyderabad in contention with some gutsy stroke-play in his 24-ball 34. He began by pulling Pandya over long leg for six. Pooran then slammed delightful leg-side boundaries off Holder before producing an eye-catchy drive off Bishnoi.
But Avesh tilted the scales in Lucknow's favour by forcing Pooran in miscueing to long-off on a low full toss in the 18th over. On the very next ball, Khan found a faint inside edge on a drive by Abdul Samad which was pouched by the keeper behind.
With 16 runs needed off the final over, Washington Sundar holed out to long-on off Holder. Holder followed it up by deceiving Bhuvneshwar Kumar with a slower delivery which took the leading edge high to the keeper and ended the match by having Romario Shepherd slicing to point as three wickets fell in the final over, which yielded only three runs.