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Follow UsThis season, there have been two games that tested Criclytics’ abilities. Both featured the same two teams; Lucknow Super Giants and Royal Challengers Bangalore.
If the first game between the two teams ended in heartbreak for an RCB fan, the reverse fixture sent them into ecstasy.
Having seen how RCB’s middle-order had repeatedly struggled, it was relieving to see them opt to bat first. The decision was also aided by the fact that the pitch got slower as the game progressed.
In their last three games, Lucknow Super Giants have failed to chase 136 and 127 at home and scored 257 in Mohali.
In fact, LSG have won two and lost three at home, this season. The two home wins also came against Delhi Capitals and Sunrisers Hyderabad, teams that haven’t really looked their part in 2023.
For starters, LSG have not won a single toss in Lucknow. Visiting teams quickly realized the slowness on offer, as the last two games saw teams winning the toss opt to bat first.
But, for a team of LSG’s quality, tosses shouldn’t have mattered. And for a team that was known to struggle against spin, this seemed like a graveyard.
However, the Lucknow surface has been a mixed bag in more ways than one.
The slow surfaces and longer boundaries notwithstanding, it’s been the pacers doing all the damage. They have taken a wicket every 13 balls, as opposed to every 18 balls for spinners. Although, spinners have conceded a miserly 6.7 RPO, while pacers have gone for 7.6 RPO.
Going into the mid-innings break, it seemed like all was over. RCB badly needed a win not to just stay afloat, but to also ensure the table opened up for other teams as well. Also, there could have been no better way to avenge the LSG loss at home than to breach their fortress.
RCB’s spin attack was the most expensive, so far, and their pacers had been carted all over the park in their previous game. It was hard to be hopeful about a win.
Just two balls into the second innings, and Mohammed Siraj scalped an in-form Kyle Mayers. And we began dreaming.
“Can they actually do it?”
Their bowling in the powerplay cleared all doubts about lack of intent. Lucknow were effectively five down, with Rahul’s injury, and Marcus Stoinis and Nicholas Pooran in the middle.
The duo had been the primary wreckers-in-chief in Bangalore and seemed to be in the mood for an encore.
Pooran soon got out to an ugly hoick off his legs, as he found the fielder in the deep on the longer side.
Stoinis was joined by K Gowtham, who seemed to take a liking to the RCB spinners.
With every run, the tension was palpable. It didn’t help that Karn Sharma continued to bowl rank bad deliveries to both batters.
Thankfully, it didn’t last much longer. Karn finally got his line right and managed to catch the big fish by forcing him to hit towards the longer part of the boundary.
In a bid to up the ante, Stoinis got out to a loft towards deep cover. 65/6, effectively 7, in the 11th over. Surely, this is game over, right?
But, that’s the thing about being an RCB fan. We’ve burnt our hands far too often, and know better than to count our chickens before they hatch.
Just taking the if/then template forward, if the RCB-LSG game in Bangalore was a deep-dive into an RCB fan’s eternal optimism, tonight was one in their pessimism.
At the end of 16 overs, LSG needed 48 runs with Amit Mishra and Naveen ul Haq at 6* (18) and 2* (3), respectively.
Even then, I couldn’t get rid of this sinking feeling that they could probably pull it off.
“What if KL Rahul walks back and wins it for LSG?” I asked myself
A couple of ungainly fours from both batters later, I was ready to accept a defeat. The ups and downs were just too much to handle.
“Mishra has a First Class double hundred,” I said in a bid to be convinced of an RCB loss.
A part of me was probably just reverse-jinxing the result, but a part of me was also genuinely scared.
Sure enough, KL Rahul walked into bat, with a functional leg and a half, to salvage whatever was left of the game.
We, RCB fans, have gotten so used to seeing our team snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, that even a half-fit KL Rahul seemed invincible.
Lucknow now need 24 of 7, and Josh Hazlewood oversteps. That’s all it took for my mind to go into a spiral.
“What if KL scores a six off the free-hit, then Mishra manages to score a boundary and then take a single in the next over? It’d then be 12 needed in 4, and that’s not beyond KL at all”
By now, I was busy preparing my mind for a defeat. As the saying goes, ‘Hope for the best, prepare for the worst”
Despite the game ending a long time ago for most cricket watchers, it took us, the RCB fans that final wicket to confirm that the Royal Challengers have won it.
Trust me, guys. The mistrust is real. What else do you put something like this down to? How else do you justify trusting a 40-year-old Amit Mishra on 15* (25) to pull off a heist.
One reason why I feel both the encounters between these two teams have been so entertaining has been their extremely high variance gameplay.
Neither team has any shortage of quality in their lineup. Of course, we will find some glaring flaws in both teams, maybe more in RCB than the other. But, no team in this tournament is perfect, and that’s the beauty of it.
It’s their bizarre tactics that make up for such entertainment. If it was RCB’s bowling in Bangalore, it was LSG’s batting tonight. Chasing 126, LSG’s biggest bets, Pooran and Stoinis, got out as though they were chasing something in excess of 200.
As an RCB fan, I couldn’t care less. Bangalore needed those two points, and they’ll take them however they come.
With five teams tied on 10 points and a potential sixth one in MI, RCB will want to continue their juggernaut to pave the way for their road to playoffs.
