As Lucknow Super Giants gear up for their second match against Chennai Super Kings on Thursday, the focus will be on young middle-order batter Ayush Badoni who made a sensational start to his career with a half-century on debut against Gujarat Titans.
Coming in with Lucknow Super Giants struggling at 29/4, Badoni (54) shared a superb rearguard 87-run partnership with Deepak Hooda (55) to help Lucknow reach a modest 158/6 in 20 overs. Though the team led by India vice-captain K.L Rahul succumbed to a five-wicket defeat, there took some positives from that game at the Wankhede Stadium. Like Badoni and Hooda's batting and Dushmantha Chameera's bowling.
But the biggest gain was Badoni's batting and the mature head he showed in building his innings. so much so that skipper K.L Rahul termed him their "Baby AB". He started cautiously before exploding into action after the 15th over.
The confident way in which he struck sixes off Gujarat Titans' skipper Hardik Pandya, experienced Afghan spinner Rashid Khan and Lockie Ferguson showed his skillsets and aggressive approach to batting.
It was former India opener and KKR captain Gautam Gambhir that had recommended Badoni to Lucknow management and the youngster did not disappoint his backers. It was Gambhir's suggestion to play the ball and not the bowler that helped Badoni to hit big sixes against the likes of Pandya, Rashid Khan and Ferguson.
"Gautam bhaiyya has backed me a lot. He always tells me to play my natural game and to play the ball and not the bowler. That gave me a lot of confidence. He also told me that I would not get to play 1-2 matches but a lot of opportunities. He backed me a lot and told me not to bother about the situation (in which I have to bat) but to play my natural game.
"There are senior players to bother about the situation. That helped me play freely," Badoni told the post-match press conference on Monday.
Lucknow will be hoping that he continues in the same vein in the subsequent matches.
On the whole, Lucknow will have to pick up their game. After the first match, skipper Rahul had said that they will have to look for good starts and practise bowling with the wet ball.
"The start wasn't ideal but the way we recovered was phenomenal. We couldn't have started the campaign in a better way. The win would have been great but a lot to learn from this. I think we gave ourselves a good chance with the ball till the 14th or 15th over. But it can be difficult with the dew. We need to go back and practise a bit more with the wet ball," Rahul said after the match.
Just like Lucknow Super Giants, Chennai Super Kings had also lost their first match and will be hoping to pick up their first points at the Brabourne Stadium on Thursday.
CSK succumbed to a six-wicket defeat against Kolkata Knight Riders in a match in which both their batting and bowling had failed to click the way they would have liked, the dew at Wankhede making bowling in the second session very difficult.
Asked to bat first, Chennai had slumped to a precarious 61/5 in the 11th over before a 38-ball unbeaten 50 by former skipper M.S Dhoni and his unfinished 70-run stand with his successor Ravindra Jadeja (26 not out) helped them reach a lowly 131 for five which KKR chased in 18.3 overs losing four wickets.
Against Lucknow Super Giants, Jadeja will be hoping for a good start from his openers Ruturaj Gaikwad and Devon Conway. The experienced Robin Uthappa and Ambati Rayudu had got a start against KKR but got out at the most inopportune times. CSK will be hoping for one of them to bat through in case the openers fail to fire.
CSK will also be hoping that the toss works out in their favour in the next couple of games and they manage to avoid the hassle of bowling in the dew. Otherwise, the defending champions face the danger of slipping further behind as they defend the title they won in UAE last year.
Squads (from):
Lucknow Super Giants: KL Rahul (c), Avesh Khan, Ayush Badoni, D Chameera, Quinton de Kock (wk), K Gowtham, Jason Holder, Deepak Hooda, Evin Lewis, Kyle Mayers, Mohsin Khan, Shahbaz Nadeem, Manish Pandey, Ankit Rajpoot, Ravi Bishnoi, Karan Sharma, Marcus Stoinis, Andrew Tye, Manan Vohra, Mayank Yadav.
Chennai Super Kings: Ravindra Jadeja (c), Moeen Ali, K.M Asif, Bhagath Varma, Dwayne Bravo, Devon Conway, Tushar Deshpande, M.S Dhoni, Shivam Dube, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Rajvardhan Hangargekar, Hari Nishaanth, Narayan Jagdeeshan, Chris Jordan, Adam Milne, Mukesh Choudhary, Dwaine Pretorius, Ambati Rayudu, Mitchell Santner, Subhranshu Senapati, Simarjeet Singh, Prashant Solanki, Maheesh Theekshana, Robin Uthappa.
(With IANS Inputs)
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