Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) sustained its first defeat of the 16th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) on April 3 (Monday). KL Rahul's men competed hard but failed to close the deal as the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) registered a 12-run victory on their homecoming at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai. Chasing a daunting target of 218 runs, in-form Kyle Mayers played another explosive knock with the bat and scored 53 runs off 22 balls. Despite Mayers' thunderous knock, LSG failed to gun down the target.
The major reason behind LSG's loss was the incapability of batters to convert the starts into a substantial score. Four LSG batters got starts but they threw their wicket away against the run of the play.
On the flip side, the Men in Yellow rode on a fantastic opening partnership of 110 runs between Ruturaj Gaikwad and Devon Coway to register a massive score of 217/7 in 20 overs.
After the match, captain KL Rahul also underlined that his bowlers failed to hit the right areas which helped CSK to get a solid start.
"Not the ideal start after winning the toss. The first couple of overs it was a bit sticky and there was a bit of movement, but we did not bowl in the right areas and they got that flier. When you have quality batters in the opposition, they make you pay. Something for us to learn but the way Rutu and Conway played was brilliant. It does take time to learn what lengths to bowl on a surface, but to go for 70 odd in six overs isn't ideal," Rahul told the host broadcaster.
LSG skipper also urged his players to capitalise on the opportunity better than what they did on Monday as batters failed to take the team to the promised land. Rahul also lauded the effort put in by Mayers and leg-spinner Ravi Bishnoi.
"We batted well but we didn't capitalize (on) the small momentum. Kyle (Mayers) is coming off good form, he was smoking them for West Indies and comes here with the same form and intent. Great to see what he's done with the opportunity. Bishnoi is someone I've played with for a while. He gets wickets when things aren't going well, puts his hand up and contains runs. Good to see different guys putting their hands up," said Rahul
"Wouldn't change the toss decision, we didn't win because we didn't capitalize (on) the small moments. We had a good start but couldn't press on. Not often we'll find 4-5 guys caught on the boundary ropes, they needed to go over and will go over the next time. We'll take that in T20 cricket, today the game didn't go our way but this is the way we want to keep playing," he added.
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