Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) mentor Gautam Gambhir was over the moon as his team qualified for the IPL 2023 playoffs with a narrow 1-run win over Kolkata Knight Riders at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata on May 20.

Thanks to contributions from Quinton de Kock (28), Prerak Mankad (26), Ayush Badoni (25), and a late surge by Nicholas Pooran (58), LSG made 176/8 in 20 overs after being put into bat by KKR skipper Nitish Rana who had won the toss.

For KKR, Shardul Thakur, Vaibhav Arora, and Sunil Narine took two wickets each.   

In reply. Jason Roy (45) and Venkatesh Iyer (24) added quick 61 runs for the first wicket. But they were quickly in trouble as Ravi Bishnoi and Yash Thakur ran through the middle order.

But then Rinku Singh sprang into action and almost took KKR home, scoring 67* with 4 sixes and 6 fours as the home side finished on 175/7 in 20 overs and lost by the smallest of margins possible- 1 run.

IPL 2023: “There was a lot of pressure…,” says Krunal Pandya after LSG beat KKR in a thriller to qualify for playoffs

After the win, while LSG stand-in captain Krunal Pandya looked towards the sky to thank god, a video shared by IPL on its Twitter handle, showed LSG mentor Gautam Gambhir enthusiastically banging on the table before standing up and congratulating others in the team dugout.

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