Left-arm spin all-rounder Krunal Pandya starred with a three-fer as Lucknow Super Giants restricted Sunrisers Hyderabad to a modest 121\/8 on a sluggish black-soil pitch at the Bharat Ratna Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Cricket Stadium here on Friday.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
Krunal was undoubtedly the pick of the bowlers for Lucknow, constantly attacking the stumps to pick a tidy 3-18 in his four overs. Veteran leg-spinner Amit Mishra took 2-23 while Ravi Bishnoi and Yash Thakur chipped in with a scalp each.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
Lucknow drew first blood in the third over as Mayank Agarwal went for an uppish drive against Krunal, but he was undone by the flight and ended up giving a tame chip to cover. Anmolpreet Singh got some boundaries against spinners as well as Thakur with a lovely punch, sweep and chip over mid-off.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
Though Anmolpreet survived an lbw appeal off Thakur in the final over of Power-play, he didn't have the same luck in the eighth over as Krunal trapped him lbw with a flatter and quicker delivery on stumps going past the bat to hit the back pad.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
On the very next ball, Pandya's tossed-up delivery kept low and skidded past Aiden Markram's bat to rattle his off-stump, sending the SRH skipper back for a golden duck.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
Bishnoi entered the wicket-takers column by setting up Harry Brook with three consecutive quick googlies before the leg-break was slipped in to beat an advancing Brook on the outside edge and have him stumped easily.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
Rahul Tripathi and Washington Sundar went on the defensive to stitch a 39-run partnership off 50 balls. Tripathi got some boundaries through the off-side, including off a reverse sweep, to give the score a push.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
But in a bid to ramp off Thakur in the 18th over, Tripathi was caught by Mishra at short third man, diving full length to his left to grab a stunning catch with both hands. In the next over, Mishra had Sundar and Adil Rashid holing out to long-on and long-off respectively.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
It took Abdul Samad's cameo of 21 off 10 balls, including two sixes off Jaydev Unadkat in the final over, to help SRH cross 120-mark on a slow and low pitch. <\/p>\r\n\r\n