Navi Mumbai, Apr 4 (IANS): Deepak Hooda and captain K.L Rahul slammed half-centuries as Lucknow Super Giants reached 169/7 against Sunrisers Hyderabad in match 12 of IPL 2022 at the DY Patil Stadium on Monday.
Lucknow were in trouble at 27/3 when Hooda (51 off 33 balls) and Rahul (68 off 50 balls) stitched a partnership of 87 off 62 balls to revive the innings. For Hyderabad, birthday boy T. Natarajan scalped 2/26 while off-spinner Washington Sundar took two early wickets to finish with figures of 2/28.
Lucknow were hit with an early blow when Sundar, in his first over, forced Quinton De Kock to drive through off-side in the air and gave an easy catch to cover.
Evin Lewis couldn't break free against Sundar via sweeps and was trapped plumb lbw on the third try after surviving an earlier appeal via umpire's call. Manish Pandey hit Romario Shepherd for successive boundaries but the pacer had the last laugh as the right-handed batter mistimed to mid-on.
Rahul and Hooda took some time before the duo went into break-free mode. Hooda and Rahul slammed four boundaries off tearaway pacer Umran Malik to take 20 runs off the 10th over. With Rahul dropping anchor, Hooda continued to take boundaries off Malik by slamming two fours through backward point and down the ground followed by a pulled six over fine leg.
After Hooda raised his fifth IPL fifty with a single through long-on, Shepherd managed to deceive him with a slower delivery, which the right-handed batter miscued to deep mid-wicket. Rahul then immediately notched up his fifty and in the next over, hit back-to-back boundaries off Sundar to loot 17 runs from the 17th over with Ayush Badoni hitting a boundary too.
Rahul had a reprieve at 64 when Abdul Samad dropped a tough chance at deep cover off Bhuvneshwar Kumar. But in the next over, he was trapped lbw by a yorker from T. Natarajan while going for the sweep.
Natarajan scalped his second wicket in the same over when his yorker sneaked past Krunal Pandya's bat to hit the base of leg-stump. Badoni and Jason Holder hit a boundary each in the final over before the former was run out on the final ball to give Hyderabad a target of 170.
Brief scores: Lucknow Super Giants 169/7 in 20 overs (K.L Rahul 68, Deepak Hooda 51; T. Natarajan 2/26, Washington Sundar 2/28) against Sunrisers Hyderabad