Quinton de Kock’s shrewd fifty and pace sensation Mayank Yadav’s young talent keep Lucknow Super Giants in line in Tuesday’s IPL The team defeated Royal Challengers Bengaluru by 28 runs in the match. Lucknow finished 1 with 5 on the back of Quinton De Kock’s 81 (56 birds) and Nicholas Pooran’s unbeaten 40 (21 birds) 81 shots. RCB threatened a miraculous short-lived extension to 182 through Mahipal Lomror, who made 33 off 13 balls. However, Mayank’s searing wicket (3/14) could not be denied as the home team were bowled out for 153 runs.

But in truth, RCB’s chase never really got off the ground – partly due to their own stupidity and partly due to the brilliance of Lucknow’s bowlers.

Lucknow opened the bowling with two spinners, Manimaran Siddharth and Krunal Pandya, which really allowed Faf du Plessis (13 19 off) and Virat Kohli (22 off 16) were surprised.

But with the introduction of Naveen-ul-Haq, Kohli upped the ante and took him off the bowler’s head for six.

Left-arm spinner Siddharth soon picked up a huge wicket from the in-form Kohli, who tried to break inside out only to be caught by Devdutt Padikkal’s simple catch at backward point.

RCB, from the moment they lost captain Du Plessis to the senseless dismissal of Glenn Maxwell and Cameron Green, found themselves at 58 for four in the eighth over.

It was during this period that Mayank stepped up his pace with three strokes out (3-0-13-2).

Maxwell tried to pull a 151 kph laser beam off Mayank, but the speed meant the Australian couldn’t time the pull, resulting in Pooran taking an easy catch at short mid-wicket.

Green was beaten by Mayank’s raw pace as the delivery went a bit straighter after the length of the delivery was long enough to rattle his off-stump.

The right-arm fastman later added Rajat Patidar (27) to his kitty to reduce RCB to 103 for 6 while the home team was sinking fast.

Earlier, de Kock showed his exceptional batting skills with a score of 50, but Lucknow could not go beyond the par score.

The left-hander chose his position around the bowler and the field to hit the ball with precision, but the RCB bowlers did not allow the other batsmen, except Pooran, to run freely.

The Super Giants got going quickly, reaching 32 runs unbeaten in three overs before posting 54 runs in the powerplay.

Most of the runs came from de Kock’s blade, who particularly favored pacer Mohammed Siraj.

The South African slammed him for three sixes – two in a row – spread over two overs – two powerful pulls and a nice loft over mid-wicket.

KL Rahul, who captained the side after coming on as a substitute in the last match against Kings XI Punjab, started slowly scoring 6 runs in the first 10 balls.

But left-arm pacer Yash Dayal gave momentum to his innings with a six and he later swept off spinner Maxwell with a six.

However, Rahul soon died as Maxwell’s long delivery ended up in the hands of Mayank Dagar in the circle.

The second substantial alliance in LSG’s innings came after the exit of Devdutt Padikkal, with De Kock and Marcus Stoinis (24, 15b) ) scored 56 runs in 30 balls for the third wicket.

De Kock continued his form in the league with 50 off 36 balls, with Stoinis hitting six each off Maxwell and Green as LSG kept going.

But the flourishing partnership came to an end when Stonis’ half-hearted jab was met by Duggar. De Kock departed soon after, sending Reece Topley to Dagar.

At that stage, LSG had scored 143 for four in 16.3 overs and needed more runs to reach safer shores.

Pooran hit three sixes in a row off left-arm seamer Topley in the 19th over and hit two more maximums off Mohammed Siraj in the final over They were given those opportunities in one offense.

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