IPL NEWBIES
Follow UsLucknow Super Giants needed 40 from 16 balls while chasing a massive target of 211 against Chennai Super Kings at the Brabourne Stadium when young Ayush Badoni walked in to partner Ewin Lewis.
No young player can be at ease going up against IPL's highest wicket-taker Dwayne Bravo. But Badoni, 22, showed respect to the Windies allrounder as he worked the ball into the gaps and ran five runs.
He turned the tables on CSK when he shuffled across his stumps against Shivam Dube's first ball of the penultimate over and swept it over deep square for a six. After Ewin Lewis smashed 14 runs in the over, Badoni (19 not out off 9 balls) added the finishing touches to LSG's first-ever win in the IPL with a flick off his pads against Mukesh Choudhary and ran the winning single.
The right-hander's talent was evident in his debut match against Gujarat Titans, when he faced the likes of Lockie Ferguson, Mohammad Shami, Rashid Khan and Hardik Pandya and scored 54 off 41 balls. By doing so, he also rescued his team, who were reeling at 29/4, by building a partnership of 87 in 68 balls with Deepak Hooda (55 off 41 balls).
His innings also included an audacious ramp shot behind the stumps against Hardik, a gallant sixes against Rashid and Ferguson as LSG posted 158/6 in 20 overs.
Badoni is a student of Tarak Sinha, who has previously coached cricketers like Shikhar Dhawan, Rishabh Pant, Ashish Nehra to name a few. In his Under-19 debut series against Sri Lanka, Badoni picked up six wickets (4-24 and 2-57) and scored 185* in the four-day match against Sri Lanka in 2018 in Colombo.
He followed it up with a haul of 199 runs at 66.33 in five matches in the Under-19 Asia Cup 2018-19. In the final, he smashed an unbeaten 28-ball 52 against Sri Lanka as India clinched the title with a 144-run victory.
However, he missed out on a place in the 2018 Under 19 World Cup, from which he could've had a winner's medal. India went with the spin-bowling allrounders Abhishek Sharma, and Anukul Roy ahead of Badoni.
At 19, he was Delhi’s highest run-getter in the Under-23 One-Day competition in 2019-20, scoring 389 runs at 55.57 and strike-rate of 83.11. He also picked up eight wickets at an economy rate of less than five.
Lucknow Super Giants' mentor Gautam Gambhir, who rates the youngster highly, will be glad that the franchise have picked him up for the season at a base price of Rs 20 Lakh.
