LSG vs KKR, 53rd Match at Pune, IPL, May 07 2022 - Match Result

Thank you for tuning in to ESPNcricinfo. We hope you enjoyed our coverage. Do join us again tomorrow for another double-header. For now, it's goodbye from me, Ekanth, on behalf of my fellow commentator, Karthik Krishnaswamy, and our scorers, Ranjith P and M Venkat Raghav. Take care, stay safe.

Avesh Khan, POTM: The attempt was to get Dre Russ out, as he was going well. My aim was going with the hard lengths even if that goes for six. His wicket was the best of the three as he was on top. I look to take it one ball at a time. My dad and the coaches have encouraged me to take wickets and help the team win. The conversations with the other bowlers is to execute plans according to the demands of the situations, we figure out what the track is doing and communicate it to share knowledge.

KL Rahul, LSG Captain: We dominated most of the game, started well with the bat except the run-out. We thought the wicket was slow and sticky and thought 155 would be par. QDK, Deepak, and Stoinis took it to 170+. Having skill is good, but bowling well under pressure and being brave, trusting the best ball on the wicket without being worried about who's playing makes our bowling unit commendable. We do have some plans before the game, and what's good to see is they remember those plans under pressure. If we go for runs from there then that's acceptable. I can't think of any game where we've had a complete performance, and no team will find the perfect performance. But we have pulled out the win from different situations. We are sticking to our plans and winning which is great.

Menon: "Got to feel for Dre Russ. He constantly puts his hand up and takes wickets and scores runs every game, but there's only so much he can do. He really needs the rest of the team to perform too."

Hariharan: "3 out of 4 mega cities are out and hope the fourth one also does not make, so other smaller cities come forward."

Looks like the Points Table will not be opening up, LSG are on top now. Their score of 176 looked 10-15 over par, it turned out to be 75 extra. Mohsin's spell was remarkable up-top, other bowlers followed suit to ensure wickets came at regular intervals. The strangle was always on, Russell came out swinging and luck was on his side for a while but there was way too much to do. Wickets came in clusters and the match ended quickly.

Shreyas Iyer, KKR captain: They outplayed us in bowling and batting. They bowled well in the powerplay, they started well with the bat too. We came back in the middle but they took it away from us at the death. It was hard to read the wicket, so we chose to bowl. We found out the ball was stopping and the pitch was two-paced. It was a 155-160 wicket, but they went over that. Baz and I discuss what to do at the toss, it's best to lose tosses (laughs), but I've won them. But we have not gotten the basics right. Powerplay and death are the areas to improve, hopefully we can get it right next time.

10:50 pm: LSG win by 75 runs, mainly on the back of some excellent powerplay batting and a death over, and knocked over KKR's top-order. Handshakes all round follow the celebrations from LSG.

Raj: "Why not ball tracking before ultra edge for LBWs?" Because of the protocol

Siddhesh: "I doubt Cricinfo's impact score will capture it, but that initial 3 over spell by Mohsin Khan was pure gold and probably set the tone right away in terms of their defense. KKR were left playing catch-up ever since and that's led to their current situation staring at a huge defeat. "

Around the wicket

Slip in

Terry: "Why is Umesh not playing?" Injury, he pulled his calf-muscles

Anand Meenakshi: "Bring back Mohsin, he will Finish the tail with his bag full of tricks!" Still recovering from that dream spell upfront. For his sake, I hope he does as you say.

Sundar Ananthak: "Is Krunal Pandya in the playing 11 purely as a batsman? That doesn't make sense at all!" He's not been needed.

KKR take the timeout

Slip stays

Slip in

Aashish Calla: "Interestingly, just 12 wickets into this game so far, we've already seen wickets go to 9 different bowlers - How unique is that! "

Avesh starts from over the wicket, he'll reload after the umpire noticed fielders moving

Blazer: "Interesting to see 5 wickets came from 5 different bowlers!"

Aditya: "Rinku didn't need to do that, he should have just given the strike back to Dre Russ."