Krunal Pandya produced a couple of back-to-back high quality deliveries before Heinrich Klaasen and Abdul Samad took Sunrisers Hyderabad to a competitive 182 for 6 against Lucknow Super Giants in an IPL match in Hyderabad on Saturday. (More Cricket News) | (Scorecard)
Not known as a big turner of the ball, LSG skipper Krunal (2/24 in 4 overs) bowled two identical classical left-arm orthodox deliveries, which had drift as well as enough turn to hoodwink Sunrisers skipper Aiden Markram (28 off 20 balls) and Glenn Phillips (0).
In the case of Markram, Krunal drew him forward before the ball beat his outside edge to get stumped.
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And the same delivery, pitched on the same length found Phillips going on back-foot to see it deviate past his bat and peg the off-stump back. That the ball gripped a bit on both occasions also helped the bowler's cause.
However, Heinrich Klaasen (47 off 29 balls), inarguably SRH's best batter, was in his natural attacking self as his three fours and an equal number of sixes took his team to a respectable total.
The difference between Krunal and leg-spinners Amit Mishra (1/40 in 4 overs) and Ravi Bishnoi (0/23 in 2 overs) was the optimum pace in his deliveries.
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In the case of Bishnoi, he ended up bowling half-trackers while trying to bowl fast. When Mishra bowled, it didn't help as he is much slower through the air compared to his younger days. Hence, the batters got enough time to plan their shots.
Having opted to bat, SRH started off well despite losing Abhishek Sharma cheaply as Anmolpreet Singh (36 off 27) and Rahul Tripathi (20 off 13 balls) hit nine boundaries between them in the Powerplay overs itself.
It was Yash Thakur's (1/27 in 4 overs) well-directed bouncer that got rid of Tripathi while Mishra's flighted delivery stopped on Anmolpreet, who handed a return catch to the bowler.
Once Krunal's wickets reduced SRH to 115 for 5, Klaasen took it upon himself and got support from Abdul Samad (37 not out off 25 balls) as the duo added 58 in 6.4 overs to take the score past the 175-run mark.
Towards the end of the SRH innings, the match was briefly stopped when the third umpire withheld the on-field umpire's decision of ruling an Avesh Khan full-toss as a fair delivery when it looked a no-ball.
That agitated the crowd, which must have disturbed the LSG dug-out to briefly halt proceedings and Klaasen lost his concentration to miss out on a well-deserved half-ton.
