Embarrassing Lucknow Super Giants undo Shami’s effort to lose by 40 runs

Lucknow Super Giants batters, led by their mercurial skipper Rishabh Pant, let Mohammed Shami’s brilliant bowling effort go down the drain with an embarrassing 40-run defeat at the hands of an equally profligate Rajasthan Royals in an IPL match here on Wednesday. 

Chasing a target of 160, LSG huffed and puffed before being shot out for 119 in 18 overs after the slide started with their skipper Pant playing the most ugly sweep-cum- hoick to let the momentum slip after Shami, along with Mohsin Khan and Prince Yadav, had set up the platform for the hosts.

The decision to use a player like Himmat Singh as ‘Impact Sub’ will be questioned for the longest time, as the player in nearly a decade of domestic cricket never won a SMAT game for Delhi with a career strike rate of 135 and less than a six per game.   The win took Royals to the second spot with 10 points from seven games despite a shoddy batting effort.

Royals would be indebted to their ‘OG’ Ravindra Jadeja (43 no off 29 balls and 1/29) whose all-round effort went a long way in securing the win. His partnership with Shubham Dubey got them some kind of a total and then with the ball, he flung the data analysts’ match-up card to remove Nicholas Pooran.

While Royals’ batting has been inconsistent this season, the bowlers have been on the money as Rishabh Pant was dismissed by Nandre Burger (2/27), and Jofra Archer (3/20) accounted for Aiden Markram with a rising delivery. This was after Ayush Badoni was unfortunately run-out.

Mitchell Marsh (55 off 41 balls) held the innings together even as likes of Nicholas Pooran and Himmat Singh went back playing some irresponsible shots. It was left to Mukul Choudhary, who still is a work in progress and haven’t yet learnt how to tackle bouncers that grip off the surface. Earlier, Shami delivered a couple of beauties while Mohsin snuffed out teen sensation Vaibhav Sooryavanshi to restrict Royals to a meagre 159 for 6 after opting to bowl. This is the third time in three games that Royals’ top order has imploded and things have spiralled southwards for the franchise. The experience and class of Shami (2/30 in 4 overs) the Test bowler stood apart while the lanky Mohsin (2/17 in 4 overs) was extremely disciplined, getting the ball to rear up and seam at the same time from awkward lengths.

The duo between them removed the four best batters of Royals -- Shami getting rid of Yashasvi Jaiswal (22) and Dhruv Jurel (0) off successive deliveries and Mohsin removing Sooryavanshi (8 off 11 balls) and Shimron Hetmyer (22 off 18 balls) in two different spells.

The ever-improving Prince Yadav (2/29 in 4 overs) proved to be the ideal third dimension to the attack with his moving deliveries and timely dismissals.

Mayank Yadav (0/56 in 4 overs), returning from a very long rehabilitation, predictably looked the only bowler out of rhythm.

Skipper Riyan Parag, the debatable choice for captaincy based on cricketing merit, with a sequence of scores that reads 14 no, 8, 20, 3, 4, 12, 20, has proved to be more of a liability for Royals.

The most important part was stacking up the dot ball count -- between Shami (15) and Mohsin (11). They cumulatively bowled 26 dot balls. Even Prince had an impressive 13 dot balls in his kitty.

However, the day would be remembered for the artist that Shami has been with both red and white ball in his hand.

He bowled a sharp bouncer to Jaiswal that got big on him as the left-hander tried to hook it awkwardly and skipper Rishabh Pant timed his jump to perfection to pluck off a superb one-handed catch.

Pant, whose bowling changes were on point, had a second catch when Shami bowled a peach, fuller pitched on middle stump line to draw Jurel forward and it deviated late, kissing the outside edge of his bat.

In case of Mohsin, he set up the young Sooryavanshi with five successive dot balls -- either pitched on hard length or slightly fuller. The sixth and final delivery of his second over was a 142 click fast leg-cutter and the teenager threw the bat, only to find the leading edge balloon up. Digvesh Rathi running backwards from his cover position took a well-judged catch.

The Royals innings never had momentum and Parag as usual tried to play the MS Dhoni ‘Helicopter’ shot, but more often than not, his success rate in pressure situations has been abysmally low.

Had veteran Ravindra Jadeja not stemmed the rot with a 29-ball-43 not out, Royals wouldn’t have crossed 150-run mark.