Navi Mumbai, April 4: Lucknow Super Giants paid 25 times more than his base price of Rs 20 lakh to get Avesh Khan’s services in IPL-15. The move was worth it as his excellent bowling acted as the catalyst for his team’s 12-run win over Sunrisers Hyderabad here on Monday.
Heading into the lucrative T20 league as the most expensive uncapped Indian player, Avesh picked up four big wickets for only 24 runs and bowled a brilliant 18th over to turn the match decisively in LSG’s favour.
Asked to bat first, skipper KL Rahul and Deepak Hooda struck useful half-centuries to lift Lucknow Super Giants to 169 for seven after a disastrous start.
Chasing 170, Kane Williamson’s (16) innovation brought him two fours and a six but he paid the price for going overboard, his ramp shot off Avesh finding a sliding Andrew Tye at short fine leg in the fourth over with SRH score reading 25 for one.
Avesh brought about Abhishek Sharma’s downfall with a change in pace as the batter failed to read it while trying to loft him.
As Sharma made his way back to the dugout, last-game’s half centurion Aiden Markram walked out to join Rahul Tripathi in the middle, and the two began rebuilding the SRH innings.
Placed at 51 for two at the end of the seventh over, Tripathi used Tye’s pace to hit the Australian bowler for three fours and then, using his wrists, smashed Krunal Pandya (2/27) for a six over fine leg. A quite 10th over was, however, followed by the dismissal of Markram, the bowler being Krunal.
Going strong at 44 off 30 balls, Tripathi tried to slog sweep Krunal and hit straight to deep mid-wicket, where Ravi Bishnoi was stationed. Nicholas Pooran smashed Krunal over long-on for six and then carted Jason Holder (3/34) for 15 runs to bring the equation down to 50 form the last 30 balls.
Andrew Tye kept it fairly tight in the 17th over, giving not more than eight runs, before Pooran hoicked Avesh Khan over deep square leg for a maximum.
However, Avesh had the last laugh as Pooran mistimed his knee-high full toss.
Earlier, coming back from a long break after playing their opener last Tuesday, SRH made a dream start and left LSG in all sorts of trouble early on. After LSG lost three wickets for just 27 runs in the powerplay, Rahul (68 off 50 balls) found an able ally in Hooda (51 off 33 balls) and added 87 runs for the fourth wicket to revive the innings and lay the foundation for their win. (PTI)
