Krunal Pandya shone with an all-round show while his captain KL Rahul chipped in with the bat as Lucknow Super Giants notched a comprehensive five-wicket win over Sunrisers Hyderabad in their Indian Premier League match here on Friday.
Krunal first produced a superb spell of 3/18 with the ball to restrict SRH to a paltry 121 for 8 and then contributed 34 off 23 deliveries with the bat to help LSG chase down the target with 24 balls to spare in a low-scoring match.
He stitched 55 runs with Rahul (35) for the third wicket to take the game away from the SRH's reach. By the time, Krunal was out in the 13th over, LSG needed just 22 runs to win. The home side eventually reached 127 for 5 in 16 overs.
Rahul hit four fours during his 31-ball knock while Krunal's innings was studded with four boundaries and one maximum.
Rahul and Romario Shepherd (0) were out off successive deliveries bowled by Adil Rashid (2/23) in the 15th over but that was just delaying the inevitable.
Experienced pacer Bhuvneshwar Kumar conceded 13 runs in the first over of LSG's run chase, giving away five wides and Rahul hitting a four.
Rahul found the boundaries against Washington Sundar and Aiden Makram but lost his opening partner Kyle Mayers (13) in the fourth over bowled by Fazalhaq Farooqi who came in as SRH's impact player in place of Rahul Tripathi.
Bhuvneshwar made amends of his expensive first over, scalping the wicket of Deepak Hooda (7), caught and bowled, in the last powerplay delivery to reduce LSG to 45 for 2.
Rahul and Krunal denied SRH any success for 6.2 overs as LSG inched closer to the target.
LSG were always far ahead of the asking rate and they needed just 40 runs from the last 10 overs with eight wickets in hand.
Earlier, left-arm spinner Krunal snapped wickets of three top-order batters in a superb spell.
Krunal scalped the wickets of Mayank Agarwal (8), Anmolpreet Singh (31) and captain Makram (0) -- the last two dismissals from successive balls in the eighth over -- to reduce SRH, who opted to bat first, to 50 for 3.
Playing his first match of the season as well as the first as SRH captain, Markram went for a drive in the first ball he faced but it spun away to disturb his off stump.
Ravi Bishnoi then removed Harry Brook, stumped by Nicholas Pooran, for 3 as SRH were in tatters at 55 for 4 in nine overs. SRH could not recover from there.
Veteran leg-spinner Amit Mishra produced a fine spell of 2/23 later in the innings to restrict SRH to a small total. Mishra was substituted by 'Impact Player' Ayush Badoni with just one over left in the innings.
LSG skipper Rahul's ploy to introduce spin in the third over in the form of Krunal on a difficult wicket having variable bounce paid off.
Agarwal went for a drive only to hit straight to Marcus Stoinis in the third over to give LSG their first wicket. Five overs later, he trapped well-set batter Anmolpreet for an LBW before bowling out Makram the next ball to spoil the South African's first outing as SRH captain.
From 43 for 1 after the powerplay overs, SRH were 63 for 4 at the halfway stage.
One-down Rahul Tripathi (34) played a lone hand in the second half of the innings as he stitched 39 runs, the highest partnership for SRH, with Washington Sundar (16), before he fell in the 18th over off the bowling of Yash Thakur.
Abdul Samad hit two sixes in the final over bowled by Jaydev Unadkat to take the SRH score past 120.
