IPL 2022 | LSG vs DC | de Kock's spellbinding 80-run knock chokes Delhi from Capital-ising

A perfect anchor knock from Quinton de Kock and brilliant finishing touches from Ayush Badoni and Krunal Pandya has helped Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) claim a six-wicket win over the Delhi Capitals (DC) in what turned out to be a low-scoring thriller on Thursday night.

It's five required off the last over for Lucknow Supergiants (LSG) to claim yet another win in IPL 2022. Shardul Thakur is at the top of his mark, with Deepak Hooda waiting for him at the striker's end.

Thakur dishes out yet another slower ball outside the off-stump. Wide Slower balls have been the order of the day so far, with the pitch being two-paced. Thakur nails it to perfection, but Hooda doesn't. 

In an attempt to hit the seamer inside-out over extra-cover, Hooda fails to time it and ends up giving a catch to Axar Patel at sweeper-cover, who safely pouches it courtesy of a brilliant diving effort.

5 needed off 5 and a young Ayush Badoni at the strike. "GAME ON", the fans of Delhi Capitals must have thought. 

But, as he has done so brilliantly in previous outings, especially against the Chennai Super Kings, young Badoni quashed off all those hopes and finished the game in style for the Supergiants thanks to a disdainful off-drive for a four and an audacious lofted extra-cover drive that went for a six.

But how did Lucknow land in such a situation given the fact that they were chasing just 150?

Well, one reason is that their skipper Rahul scoring at a strike rate of less than 100 (25 off 24 deliveries) in the powerplay.

It was a slow track, yes, but it's also fair to say that KL didn't look in the best of touch on the night, and if it were not for his partner Quinton de Kock (80 off 52 deliveries), Lucknow would have found it quite hard to chase down the total.

de Kock, unlike KL, looked in imperious touch against both pace and spin. He welcomed his compatriot Anrich Nortje to IPL 2022 by smoking the right-arm pacer for three consecutive fours and a six.

The southpaw's intent display ensured that LSG maximized the power play despite Rahul's struggles, scoring 48.

The duo added 73 runs for the first wicket before Kuldeep Yadav broke the stand by claiming the wicket of Rahul. In the 10th over, the LSG skipper danced down the track to loft Yadav over his head for a maximum.

The only problem was that he couldn't get anywhere near the pitch of the ball and ended up giving catching practise to Prithvi.

The Proteas, however, kept on going in his merry way. He brought up a 36-ball half-century with a beautiful shot off Kuldeep in the 12th over, an inside-out lofted shot for a boundary.

Lalit Yadav, who gave away just 21 runs in four overs, ended Evin Lewis' (5 off 12 deliveries) painful stay at the crease in the 13th over, but as long as de Kock was there, DC knew they had no chance.

Things changed in the 16th over when Kuldeep eventually got rid of the Proteas stumper, leaving the struggling duo of Krunal and Hooda to finish off the game.

After this, Mustafizur and Shardul bowled two excellent overs, yielding just 9 runs to bring the equation down to 19 off 12.

However, Krunal finally got one off the middle of the bat in the penultimate over as he smoked Rahman, who fed him a slot ball, for a six over long-on.

The 14 runs from the penultimate over proved to be the jail-breaker for LSG even though Hooda did get out on the first delivery of the last over.

Earlier, Delhi Capitals batted first, and it seemed like Prithvi Shaw was batting on a different track than the rest of his batters.

Shaw looked at ease against both pace and spin, hammering a breathtaking 34-ball 61. His exploits made up for the struggles of David Warner at the other end, who looked completely out of his depth during 12-ball 4.

It looked all doom and gloom for LSG when Shaw was going hammer and tongs, but things changed decisively when the Delhi swashbuckler ended up edging an attempted cut shot off Gowtham straight to QDK.

Thanks to his nemesis Ravi Bishnoi, Warner followed suit, who also knocked over Rovman Powell (3 off 10 deliveries) to leave DC reeling at 74/3 in the 11th.

Pant (39* off 36 deliveries) and Sarfaraz Khan (36* off 28 deliveries) largely struggled throughout their unbeaten 75-run-stand in the next 10.1 deliveries, even though they racked up 31 runs off 2 overs bowled by Andrew Tye and Avesh Khan in the 16th and 17th over.

The onslaught in those overs helped Delhi to post 149, but, as it turned out, it proved to be inadequate as LSG romped home in the final over to bag two more precious points.

Brief Score:

DC- 149/3 (20)

Prithvi Shaw 61 (34), Sarfaraz Khan 36* (28), Rishabh Pant 39* (36);

Ravi Bishnoi 2/22 (4), K Gowtham 1/23 (4)

LSG- 155/4 (19.4) 

Quinton de Kock 80 (52), Krunal Pandya 19* (14), Ayush Badoni 10* (3);

Kuldeep Yadav 2/31 (3.4), Lalit Yadav 1/21 (4)

Lucknow Super Giants won by six wickets.