In a game of middling totals, Lucknow Super Giants successfully defended their score of 154 to beat Rajasthan Royals by 10 runs in the Indian Premier League (IPL). Playing in Jaipur after almost four years, the Royals won the toss and opted to bowl first, restricting Super Giants to a below-par score. In response, the Royals started well, reaching 89 for 1 after 12 overs and needing 66 runs from the remaining eight. However, the Super Giants bowlers, Marcus Stoinis and Avesh Khan, used the slowness of the pitch to their advantage, making run-scoring difficult for the Royals. As the pressure mounted, the Royals batters struggled to keep up with the required run rate, and the Super Giants managed to defend their score, with Avesh taking two wickets in the final over to seal the result.
The Super Giants had a scratchy start, with KL Rahul surviving three dropped catches in the first few overs. With just 14 runs on the board after three overs, Rahul walked at Sandeep Sharma and punched him uppishly towards extra cover, where Yashasvi Jaiswal put down a straightforward chance. Later in the over, Rahul got another life when he pushed one to the right of Jaiswal and took off. Jaiswal intercepted with a dive but missed a direct hit, and Rahul would have been out by a yard. In the next over, Rahul had a third life: he miscued Trent Boult, but Jason Holder, having settled under it after running back from mid-off, failed to hold on. With Kyle Mayers also struggling to score freely, the Super Giants finished the powerplay on 37 for 0, the lowest wicketless powerplay total this season by a distance.
It was only after the powerplay that Rahul and Mayers really tried to increase the tempo. They were successful too for a while. Mayers launched Holder for a six in the eighth over, and Rahul finished it with a four. In the next over, Yuzvendra Chahal was in the firing line. Mayers started by hitting a six and four off successive balls before Rahul slog-swept the legspinner for another six. However, the next nine overs broug
ht the Super Giants just 55 runs with the loss of four wickets. Rahul was the first to depart, chipping Holder to long-on for 39 off 32. The experiment to send Ayush Badoni at No. 3 didn’t work either; the batter deflected a scoop off Boult onto his leg stump in the next over. In the 13th over, Mayers struck back-to-back fours off Chahal, and brought up his half-century off 40 balls. But R Ashwin’s double-strike from the other end, to remove Deepak Hooda and Mayers, kept the lid on the scoring rate. And despite Nicholas Pooran hitting Holder for two fours and a six in a 17-run 19th over, the Super Giants just crossed 150.
The Royals started their chase slowly and were 23 for 0 after four overs despite Yudhvir Singh leaking 16 in the second. By the end of the powerplay, though, they had more than doubled their score. A misfield by Mayers gifted Jaiswal a boundary on the first ball of the fifth over, bowled by Yudhvir. Three balls later, Jos Buttler, who had been struggling until then, smashed a 112-metre six. In the last over of the powerplay, Jaiswal and Buttler hit Avesh for three fours, the second of those a slash from Jaiswal that burst through Naveen’s hands at short