Lucknow Super Giants: Left-arm pacer Arshdeep Singh stood up with the new ball, getting swing and bounce, to blow away Lucknow Super Giants’ (LSG) top-order and pave the way for Punjab Kings’ (PBKS) move to second place in IPL 2025 points table with a 37-run win at the HPCA Stadium on Sunday.
After Prabhsimran Singh’s sublime 91 took PBKS to a massive 236/5, Arshdeep removed Aiden Markram, Mitchell Marsh and Nicholas Pooran inside the powerplay to all but virtually set the deal in PBKS’ favour. Ayush Badoni (74) and Abdul Samad (45) sharing an 81-run stand for the sixth wicket ensured LSG finished at 199/7, which meant their net run rate didn’t suffer much, as PBKS got those crucial two points to boost their playoffs chances.
PBKS’ had a bright start to their defence – Arshdeep took out openers Marsh and Markram in the third over. While Marsh’s flick was caught by an attentive deep backward square leg, Markram chopped on to his stumps. Arshdeep again struck in power-play when his inswinger went past Pooran’s stumps and hit him on the back leg, thus trapping him plumb lbw, as LSG made 38/3 in the power-play, their lowest score in this phase of the ongoing season.