Lucknow Super Giants captain KL Rahul said it was the team’s strategy to hold back Marcus Stoinis while chasing 166 against Rajasthan Royals at the Wankhede Stadium. Stoinis, playing his first match of the season, came out to bat at number 8 and played a quick 8 off 17 balls but it was not enough for Lucknow as they lost the match by 3 runs.
Lucknow’s chase didn’t start on the right note as they lost Rahul on the first ball courtesy a Jaffa from Trent Boult. A sharp inswinger broke the gap between Rahul’s pad and the bat and hit the stumps.
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After the match, Rahul admitted that he had to give credit to Boult for improving the ball, which he went unnoticed.
“I didn’t see it (the ball he got from Boult), if I did, I could have done something about it. He has to give it. Was a good ball,” Rahul said in a post-match presentation after the match. said.
The Lucknow captain praised Stoinis for taking the game closer in his first match of the season.
“We have a good team, and we have enough options with bat and ball. Even when we were 20 for three, we knew we had a chance. Obviously, today we needed a good partnership which we never got. In the end, it was great for Stoinis to bring it closer and doing that in his first game of the season will give him confidence.”
He further admitted that it was a plan to hold Stoinis back so that he could free himself in the last five overs and added that he would continue to do unexpected things in the upcoming matches.
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“It was always a plan (to hold Stoinis back), we know how dangerous he can be in the last five overs. Like I said, we have so many all-rounders, so many options and so we can tweak the batting order a little bit. We like to be a little unpredictable. Such totals can be a bit tricky at times, the plan was to throw the bowlers a bit off their length but that didn’t happen. But we are a team that will continue to try to be unpredictable in the coming matches as well.”
He further spoke of his bowlers leaking too many runs in the death overs.
“We could not execute our plans in the end, yorkers and other plans. Today’s batsmen will put you in trouble if you miss your plans. We will try to work harder and handle the pressure better. A bad game won’t change things, it will be a good lesson for us.”
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