Rishabh Pant’s prophetic words proved to be right for the Lucknow Super Giants, against Pat Cummins’ SRH whose somewhat similar prediction silenced the whole lakh-capacity crowd in Ahmedabad in the World Cup 2023 final. Opposite to all the predictions, LSG ended up beating Sunrisers in Hyderabad.
“Doesn’t matter how many runs they score, we’re going to chase it down,” said Rishabh Pant at the toss of the Lucknow Super Giants’ second IPL 2025 clash against the Sunrisers Hyderabad. This statement was more out of hope and a little bit of ‘stay positive attitude’ than a prophecy. However, 3.5 hours later, it turned out to be the latter as the Super Giants chased down 191 in just a little over 16 overs. The visitors beat the orange run machines at their own game, just go bat-shit crazy and try and hit everything.
It helps when you have someone like Nicholas Pooran on your side, who seems to be at the peak of his powers at the moment. But this is not where the game was won. It was in the first innings when contrary to the expectations, Pant decided to field first while being well aware of what the Sunrisers can do in their own backyard.
In 16-17 games whatever SRH have played after Pat Cummins and Daniel Vettori took over the reins, the Sunrisers’ mantra has been to try and out-bat the opposition and bowl just good enough to stop the opposition at a score lower than them. Perfectly alright! If that’s the approach and mindset, it shouldn’t be a problem. But it is the second season and Lucknow showed how these monsters can be tamed in their sophomore season, by astute planning and implementation with the ball.
For the first time probably, SRH found themselves in the shoes of the teams they have inflicted carnage on, searching for bowlers who can provide them breakthroughs and stem the run-flow. It’s at this point when the eight other teams watching the game realised, ‘Oh, they are not invincible.’
Zaheer Khan, the new bowling mentor for the Super Giants, seemed to have strategised methodically for each and every SRH batter as to how they could be kept quiet. Even though the hosts did get to 190, it wasn’t daunting. It was high but the match was far from over, unlike instances when these guys go and smash everything and reach those high 260-270s.
At the start of the match, not just the fans, but even experts and cricketers including someone like David Warner got too ahead of themselves hoping for a first 300-ish score on the board looking at Lucknow’s depleted bowling attack. But whatever could go wrong with the Sunrisers with the bat, did. A glance down the leg getting caught by the keeper, a run out at the non-striker when the bowler got the ball to richochet when it hit him outside the pitch. Lucknow made their luck with the ball and they always had the batting to do a Sunrisers on Sunrisers.
What will make SRH the team they were in last year or a cut above the rest, is their bowling. They need someone like Adam Zampa to step up and not let the opposition bully their part-time options. In Pat Cummins, Mohammed Shami and Harshal Patel, SRH have an experienced international bowling trio, who know what they are doing but to avoid what Lucknow achieved against them, they will need to plan for the opposition batters as well.
For now, Pant and Co will be rejoicing in what they were able to achieve with the bowling attack and may now force teams to show some respect to those names on the bowling sheet because they are not here just to earn a day’s remuneration.
