IPL: Rajasthan fall short against Lucknow

Jaipur, Apr 20 (UNI) It was not the home coming Rajasthan Royals hoped for as they endured a 10-run loss to Lucknow Super Giants in the Indian Premier League on Wednesday.
At the Sawai Mansingh Stadium, the Men in Pink started well and restricted Lucknow to154/7. But later fell short of the target as batting became incrementally difficult on a slow surface.
The loss, however, doesn’t affect Rajasthan’s position on the points table as they continue tooccupy the top spot, thanks to a better Net Run Rate when compared to Lucknow.
Choosing to bowl first, Rajasthan’s bowling unit put up a fine show to restrict Lucknow to abelow-par score. While Trent Boult didn’t strike in the Powerplay, he was lethal with the new ball as Lucknow found it hard to get going. Sandeep Sharma and Ravichandran Ashwin too kept things tight, cramping Lucknow batsmen for any room.
In reply, Rajasthan, began well with Yashasvi Jaiswal (44) and Jos Buttler (40) once again playing the main protagonists. The two put on an 87-run partnership for the opening wicket. But as the match progressed, the total was a bridge too far to cross.
He is used to striking early in the Powerplay, and things have been no different this season. But against Lucknow, Boult’s story was a bit different. Though he didn’t open his account in the first six overs – a wicket eluding him after Jason Holder dropped KL Rahul – the Kiwi pacer put on aclinical performance to restrict Lucknow from scoring freely.
Boult started off with a maiden and gave away just two in his second before Kyle Mayers eked out a few runs in the third over.
Gunning in at a healthy pace, Boult stuck to stumps and extracted enough from the pitch to trouble the batsmen as runs dried out with Rajasthan conceding just 37 in the Powerplay.
With Sharma keeping the lid on the scoring, Ashwin also ensured that Lucknow weren’t handed any freebies. Purple Cap holder Yuzvendra Chahal endured a rather off day, but his spin partner made up for his miss with wickets of both, a dangerous-looking Mayers and Deepak Hooda in the same over, to put the brakes on Lucknow’s innings.
Later, Marcus Stoinis and Nicholas Pooran showed resilience with a 45-run partnership, as Lucknow crossed the 150-run mark.
Coming into bat amidst a sea of pink, both Jaiswal and Buttler were determined to take the fight to the opponents. And after a quiet opening over from Naveen-ul-Haq, Rajasthan charged into Yudhvir Singh to score 16 runs in the second. They targeted the medium pacer as he went for 27 in his two overs.
While Jaiswal was dropped in the sixth over, Buttler applied himself and played well, including amammoth 112-metre six off Yudhvir Singh, to keep the scorecard ticking.
But just when it looked like things were going well for Rajasthan, Stoinis struck by sending Jaiswal back following a sharp catch by Avesh Khan at short-third. That somewhat derailed theinnings as wickets fell in a heap.
“You need to play some smart cricket and we did that till the ninth over. Right after Jaiswal got out, it was a matter of getting that one big partnership. They bowled really well, whenever wetried to go hard at them, I think we lost wickets,” skipper Sanju Samson told the broad casters after the match.