Pooran's fast fifty helps LSG thrash SRH by 5 wickets
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The season's fastest fifty from Nicholas Pooran helped Lucknow Super Giants smash Sunrisers Hyderabad by five wickets in their second match of IPL 2025 at Hyderabad on Thursday.
Helped by the half centuries from Pooran and Mitchell Marsh, LSG chased down the 191-run target set by SRH with 23 balls to spare. Except for skipper Pat Cummins, the rest of SRH's bowling unit felt the heat of LSG batting.
The fearless batting from the West Indies star earned him the orange cap, which was claimmed by Travis Head earlier in the match. Pooran is followed by Marsh in the list with Head at the third spot.
Lucknow started their chase with a shock from Mohammed Shami, who dismissed Aiden Markram when the score was just four runs. Impact substitute Marsh was joined by Pooran, who never allowed the ball to land from the air in the next eight overs.
Boundaries were raining, and in the third ball of the seventh over, Pooran completed the milestone, smashing a six off Adam Zampa. The duo went on to add more runs until Skipper Cummmins took the ball, determined to end their show. In the ninth over, Cummins dismissed Pooran, but the damage was already done. LSG were 120/2.
Cummins dismissed Marsh in his next over, with the Australian caught by Nitish Kumar Reddy after scoring his fifty. What Pant and other batsmen were left to do was to finish the innings with a win. Though Pant got dismissed for a score of 15, David Miller and Abdul Samad ensured that LSG crossed the finish line.
Earlier, a decent bowling attack from the Lucknow Super Giants kept Sunrisers Hyderabad at 190/9. SRH's famed batting unit, known for setting massive scores, struggled to perform at its usual standard against the LSG bowlers, who maintained good lengths and took wickets at the right time.
Shardul Thakur led the LSG bowling attack with 4/34, claiming the purple cap for the highest wicket-taker with six wickets. He also reached the 100-wicket milestone in the IPL.
LSG dealt a double blow to the SRH batsmen on their home turf in the third over when Shardul Thakur dismissed Abhishek Sharma and Ishan Kishan in back-to-back deliveries. Thakur's hopes of securing the first hat-trick of IPL 2025 were dashed by Nitish Kumar Reddy, who defended a well-placed yorker to score a single.
Travis Head, as usual, added quick runs to the board, fearlessly facing the LSG bowlers. He made 47 runs off just 28 deliveries and was well supported by Reddy. However, after his wicket fell in the eighth over, it seemed that LSG were gaining momentum and coming back into the game. But they could not keep the run rate under 9 as SRH continued to find runs.
Aniket Verma smashed five sixes to quickfire a 36 runs off 13 balls to keep the run rate steady. Though Verma was dismissed by Digvesh Singh, skipper Pat Cummins continued to add runs to the board. However, Shardul Thakur's second spell claimed two more wickets, restricting SRH to just ten runs shy of 200.