Rajasthan Royals Win A Thriller, Beat Lucknow Super Giants By 3 Runs

Rajasthan Royals Defeat Lucknow Super Giants By 3 runs.

Young Kuldeep Sen, playing his first IPL match, kept his cool and helped Rajasthan Royals beat Lucknow Super Giants by 3 runs in the 20th match of the IPL 2022. 

Chasing 166, Lucknow had a horror start as they lost two wickets in the first two balls of the inning - courtesy of Trent Boult. LSG further lost their third wicket inside the powerplay as well and finished the first six overs with the score reading 31/3. 

Quinton de Kock and Deepak Hooda rebuilt the inning with a 38-run stand in 34 balls. Hooda scored 25 in 24 balls before he got out in the 10th over. de Kock kept knocking around, trying to find a partner but didn't. de Kock got out in the 16th over on 39 and things looked down and out for the Super Giants. 

Marcus Stoinis, who was sent in at number eight, kept LSG interested till the final over of run-chase. Stoinis smacked 19 runs in Prasidh Krishna's over and the equation came down to 15 runs off the last over. 

Debutant Kuldeep was given the responsibility and he delivered it with perfection. Three consecutive dot balls pushed Lucknow out of the equation and despite Stoinis hitting 10 runs on the last two balls, Rajasthan won the game by three runs. 

Yuzvendra Chahal picked four wickets while Boult's two made things tough for the Super Giants to complete the run chase. 

Earlier, Shimron Hetmyer took Royals out of big trouble and helped them post 165 in the first inning. 

After a stellar start to the inning, RR collapsed from 42/0 to 67/4 inside five overs with all the top four batters back in the pavilion. 

Hetmyer and R Ashwin added crucial 68 runs in 51 balls to rebuild the inning and get the Royals to a competitive target. Ashwin scored 28 in 23 balls before making history of becoming the first-ever player in IPL to get retired out. 

Ashwin going back to the pavilion got Riyan Parag to the crease when 10 balls were remaining. Hetmyer and Parag smacked 28 runs in the next nine balls to get RR to 165. Hetmyer remained not out on 59 in 36 balls with the help of six sixes and one four. 

Brief Scorecard: 

Rajasthan Royals - 165/5 
Lucknow Super Giants - 162/8