Hyderabad: Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) skipper was in awe after watching unreal batting from Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) openers Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma as the duo chased down the target of 166 in just 9.4 overs at Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium on Wednesday.
Head 89 off 30 and Abhishek Sharma 75 off 28 joined hands together yet again as SRH thrashed Lucknow by 10 wickets in an epic run chase which didn’t last even an hour. In the process, SRH scripted a new T20 record for chasing the most number of runs in the first 10 overs of a match.
“I am lost for words. We have watched that batting on TV, but that was unreal,” KL Rahul said after the match. “Everything was hitting the middle of the bat. Kudos to their skill, they (Head and Abhishek) have worked very hard on their six-hitting. They didn’t give a chance to see what the wicket was playing like, it didn’t change much, but that mindset and freedom to tee off from ball one… the only way to stop them was wickets in the powerplay and we didn’t do that,” Rahul added.
Head smashed a half-century in just 16 balls after an astonishing display of batting. One of his incredible shots was a back-foot off-drive against Ravi Bishnoi for a huge maximum over long-off. Then there was a swat down the wicket straight of mid-off to Naveen-ul-Haq. On the other hand, Sharma reached his fifty in 19 balls with a straight six off Ayush Badoni.
The stunning win boosted SRH’s Net Run Rate (NRR) from -0.065 to 0.41 with an early finish. Pat Cummins-led side are moved to No. 3 in the points table with 14 points in 12 matches.
LSG, currently sixth, need to win their last two matches and hope other results go their way if they are to qualify for the playoffs.
LSG will face Delhi Capitals in New Delhi on May 14 and then Mumbai Indians, who are out of the race to Playoffs, at the Wankhede Stadium on May 17 in their final league game.
(IANS)
