Lucknow Super Giants 181 for 5 (De Kock 81, Pooran 40*, Maxwell 2-23) beat Royal Challengers Bengaluru 153 (Lomror 33, Mayank 3-14, Naveen 2-25) by 28 runs
The back-of-the-hand slower balls from Reece Topley and Yash Dayal were sticking in the surface, but Mayank doesn’t do slow. He repeatedly breached 150kph – and even cranked it up to a season-high 156.7kph – to shut down RCB’s chase.
De Kock dashes out of the blocks
When Topley, de Kock’s team-mate in the SA20, offered him width, he stayed leg side of the ball and crunched him through the covers. Mohammed Siraj didn’t offer de Kock as much width, but when he erred on height and bowled at the thigh, de Kock picked him over square leg. De Kock claimed 32 of the 54 runs LSG scored in the powerplay for the loss of Rahul.
De Kock could have been dismissed for 32 in the next over, but Maxwell dropped him. He added 49 to his tally before Topley eventually had him holing out to long-off for 81 off 56 balls.
Maxwell impresses with the ball
On a night when RCB’s specialist spinner Mayank Dagar bowled just two overs for 23 runs, Maxwell stepped up with 4-0-23-2, including 12 dots. He fronted up to bowl two overs in the powerplay, where he had Rahul caught at extra-cover with a hard-length delivery.
He then returned after the powerplay to remove another right-hander – Marcus Stoinis (24 in 15) – by hiding the ball away from his reach. Maxwell also won his match-up against de Kock, keeping him to four off eight balls. That Maxwell, with four strikes, is RCB’s highest wicket-taker this season after four games shines the spotlight on the inefficiency of the frontline bowlers.
Pooran tees off
Pooran had a slow start: he was on eight off ten balls at one point. He then smote five sixes off the last two overs to silence a capacity crowd at the Chinnaswamy. The pick of the lot was the shanked six off a 110.4kph slower ball from Topley that landed on the roof the stadium.
The margin for error is wafer-thin against elite power-hitters like Pooran. When Topley missed his wider yorkers marginally, Pooran scythed him for a brace of sixes at point and put LSG back on top.
Siddharth arrives in the IPL
So, Siddharth switched to left-arm spin, but he continues to swing the new ball. That’s his calling card in the Tamil Nadu Premier League. LSG’s team management had so much faith in him that they backed him to bowl with the new ball against Virat Kohli and Faf du Plessis on the night.
After darting inswingers at speeds north of 110kph, Siddharth slowed his pace down and drew a leading edge from Kohli. In the next over, du Plessis was run-out, leaving RCB at 42 for 2 in the sixth over.
Mayank’s rockets
Maxwell managed to evade the first bouncer from Mayank, but when he dug one in and got it to climb towards Maxwell’s ribs at 151kph, the batter was rushed into flapping a catch to mid-on to leave for a duck.
Then, in his next over, Mayank nailed the top of Green’s off stump with another scorching delivery. The reading on the speed gun was 145kph but the belated response from Green suggested that it might have been a lot quicker than that.
Green was bred on the pacy, bouncy tracks in Perth, but an Indian rookie, only playing his 12th T20 game, made the international allrounder look like a rookie. Green simply stayed leg side of the ball and wafted at it. Mayank wheeled away in celebration and there would be no stopping him.
He proceeded to bounce out Rajat Patidar for 29 off 21 balls. RCB needed 79 off 34 balls at that point and though Mahipal Lomror hit 33 off 13 balls, the chase was always beyond RCB’s reach.
Mayank didn’t get a single game at LSG over the past two seasons, largely because of injuries. He has now become the first player in IPL history to win two Player-of-the-Match awards in his first two matches.
Deivarayan Muthu is a sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo