Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) captain KL Rahul spoke about the victory his team registered over Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) in the 15th match of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024. He was amazed by the way in which young pacer Mayank Yadav performed and He said it was a good outing for his team.
Lucknow Super Giants found their magic in IPL 2024 by winning their second consecutive game of the tournament. They defeated Royal Challengers Bengaluru by 28 runs at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium to move to fourth place in the league points table.
LSG had an excellent outing with the bat, thanks to the brutal innings of Quinton de Kock (81) and Nicholas Pooran (40*). Captain KL Rahul (20) and Marcus Stoinis (24) made useful contributions as they scored a total of 181 runs on the board at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru.
With the ball, Mayank Yadav was the star for LSG and made sure to set the stage on fire once again. He broke the backbone of RCB by removing Glenn Maxwell, Cameron Green and Rajat Patidar to return with figures of 3/14 in his 4 overs.
Naveen-ul-Haq supported him well as he picked two wickets, while Yash Thakur and Marcus Stoinis bagged a wicket each. Lucknow Super Giants defeated Royal Challengers Bengaluru by 153 runs and won the game to hand the opponent their third defeat of the season.
KL Rahul gave credit to the entire team for their performance and stated that they were 10-15 runs ahead of what they expected. He spoke about keeping up with Mayank Yadav’s raw pace, said he was hit hard by a ball and also expressed his happiness over the fast bowler’s good performance. During the post-match presentation, he explained:
“Overall, a really good performance. The wicket was a bit tricky and there was some help for the seamers. Quinton got us off to a good start. We were 10-15 runs ahead of where we needed to be. There was talk of using the wicket and not the yorkers. It is important to stay calm.
“A ball hit me very hard, I am very happy to see Mayank play the way he has. He has waited patiently for a year, is working very hard, is very professional and has a great temperament. Bowling first has been the trend in T20 cricket. If I look at our record, he says the opposite.”
We will try to find ways to get wickets in the powerplay – KL Rahul
KL Rahul further spoke about LSG’s record while defending the target and said that he is happy that he is losing deliveries and that his team is batting first. He also believes that there is room for improvement and that they need to get wickets in the powerplay. He added:
“The good thing I’m doing is losing the draw. If we get eliminated, if the opposition attacks, there is something to go back and look at. It’s okay to lose sometimes, the first game was one of those games, we recovered very well.
“That’s how we play cricket. Powerplay bowling has always been a question mark, trying to figure it out. We turned this match around, a very obvious matchup against RCB that worked. “We will try to find ways to get wickets in the powerplay.”
The Lucknow Super Giants will next be seen in action when they take on the Gujarat Titans on April 7.