KL Rahul blames Ravi Bishnoi’s missed catch of Jake Fraser-McGurk for LSG’s loss
LSG captain KL Rahul blamed Ravi Bishnoi’s dropped catch of Jake Fraser-McGurk for the team’s loss against DC at the Ekana Stadium, Lucknow on April 12, Friday.
LSG’s proud streak of successfully defending targets around160 runs was snapped by DC as they trumped Lucknow by 6 wickets. DC registered their 2nd win of the season and were propelled to the 9th spot in the points table after reeling at the bottom.
While speaking at the post-match presentation, Rahul admitted that the duo of Jake Fraser-McGurk and Rishabh Pant took the game away from LSG.
“We walked in with the same kind of mindset, assess what the good areas, what pace works on this wicket and execute as well as we can. We got Warner, and a couple after the powerplay. We were in the game till the 10th over, then a drop catch and then Rishabh-McGurk took it away from us. We fought till the end. McGurk, the new guy when they come in, was very unknown. We’ve watched a lot of videos of him, but he hit the ball really well, credit to him,” Rahul said.
After the dismissals of Prithvi Shaw for 32 and David Warner for 8 runs, Pant and Fraser-McGurk took charge of the proceedings for Delhi. The duo unleashed hell on the LSG pacers and powered DC to near a total of 168 runs with some outrageous hitting. Fraser-McGurk notched up his maiden IPL fifty in his very first IPL match and shared a 77-run stand with Pant, who scored 41 from 24 balls. However, he was dropped in the 12th over from Marcus Stoinis by Ravi Bishnoi. The dropped catch proved to be costly as DC raced away with the target.
RAHUL CREDITS KULDEEP’S SPIN MAGIC
Rahul mentioned that LSG were 15–20 runs short as they put 167 runs on the board. He praised Kuldeep Yadav, who picked up 3 wickets and kept things in check for DC in the 1st innings. The highlight among his 3 scalps was that of Nicholas Pooran as he went past the gates to get the dangerous-looking batter bowled.
“We were 15-20 short, should’ve capitalised to get 180. There was a bit of help for seamers, odd-ball was keeping low and Kuldeep put the brakes on our batting group,” Rahul said.
“In hindsight, can wonder if we could’ve done something differently [with Pooran’s batting position]. Not much spin for Axar, so I thought Nicky P (Nicholas Pooran) with the shots he has, can put the opposition under pressure. We knew they had to bowl their spinners in that phase.”
MAYANK YADAV’S INJURY UPDATE
Rahul also updated about Mayank Yadav’s injury, who couldn’t participate in the match due to swelling in his hip region.
“Mayank is not too bad, he looks good, feeling good but we also want to make sure we don’t rush him back in too early. He’s young, we need to protect his body. He’s itching to go, we just have to pull him back a little, maybe a couple of more games, before he comes back,” Rahul said.
DC put a halt to LSG’s 3-match winning streak and registered their very first win against the Rahul-led side after losing the previous 3 encounters.