Sunrisers Hyderabad thrashed Lucknow Super Giants by 10 wickets.
Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) registered a crushing 10-wicket win over Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) on Wednesday (May 8) to enhance their chances of qualifying for the IPL 2024 playoffs.
LSG captain KL Rahul opted to bat first after winning the toss but his team could only post 165/4 on the board, that too after a fine half-century by Ayush Badoni (55*) and an unbeaten 48 by Nicholas Pooran. Rahul himself scored 29 but took 33 balls to get there, which hurt the side eventually.
In reply, SRH openers Travis Head (89*) and Abhishek Sharma (75*) blazed away and created records en route their unbroken stand of 167 in just 9.4 overs to complete a 10-wicket win with 62 balls to spare. SRH now have 14 points from 12 matches, while LSG have 12 from as many matches but their net run-rate took a severe hit.
LSG owner Sanjiv Goenka, who was in attendance on the ground, wasn't happy with the team's woeful showing as he was seen having a heated chat with KL Rahul after the match, which was caught by the cameras and clips of the same went viral in no time on social media with fans slamming the businessman for publicly hitting out at the captain.
Commentator Scott Styris appreciated Rahul for keeping his cool despite the awkward situation, while Graeme Smith said on Jio Cinema, “The emotions are all over. You always feel that these conversations should always happen behind closed doors. There are so many cameras around, they miss nothing. KL Rahul is not gonna go and do press-conferences and probably potentially explain what is being discussed here.”
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Incidentally, Goenka had fired MS Dhoni as captain of Rising Pune Supergiant, a franchise he owned previously from 2016-17. Steve Smith replaced Dhoni after just one bad season for the franchise.