Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) skipper KL Rahul was at a loss for words after Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) openers Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma’s sensational hitting blew them away in Match 57 of the IPL 2024 season at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium, Hyderabad on Wednesday (May 8).

Chasing 166 to win, Head and Sharma launched a brutal assault on LSG bowlers right from the word go and helped SRH overhaul the target in just 9.4 overs with all 10 wickets in hand.

While Head stayed unbeaten on 89 off 30 balls (8 fours and 8 sixes), Sharma returned with 75 not out off 28 balls (8 fours and 6 sixes)

“Am lost for words. We have watched that kind of batting on TV. But this is unreal batting. Everything seemed to find the middle of the bat. Kudos to their skills. They have worked hard on their six-hitting skills,” Rahul said in the post-match interaction.

The LSG captain added that the only way to stop batters from coming in with this mindset was by taking wickets in the powerplay, which they failed to do.

“They didn’t give us a chance to know what the pitch played in the second innings. Was hard to stop them as they teed off from ball one,” he stated.

Earlier, Lucknow rode on Ayush Badoni’s unbeaten fifty (55 off 30) to post 165/4 on the board. Badoni was involved in an unbroken 99-run partnership for the fifth wicket with Nicholas Pooran (48* off 26) when LSG were reeling at 66/4.

KL Rahul acknowledged that LSG were 40-50 runs short but he was effusive in praise of Badoni and Pooran’s efforts with the bat.

“Once you are on the losing side, there are question marks on the decisions taken. We were 40-50 runs short. When we lost wickets in the powerplay, we couldn’t get any momentum,” KL said.

“Ayush and Nicky batted well to get us to 166. But even if we would have got 240, they could have chased it as well,” he added.

With this outcome, LSG slipped to sixth spot on the points table while SRH improved their net run rate drastically and moved up to the third position in the team standings.