OPINION
Follow UsAt the auction table, teams seldom hit the jackpot when it comes to assembling batting line-ups. More often than not, sides have at least one minor hole or a flaw that could potentially be exploited. Take the Punjab Kings, for instance. They arguably have the most destructive Top seven among all sides, but they don’t bat deep. This becomes a problem on days when they lose wickets at regular intervals.
RCB have tried managing the opening slot by deploying young Anuj Rawat, but it remains an area where they’re not too strong at. The same can be said about the Sunrisers, who are heavily reliant on the X-factor and the explosivity of their middle-order. Delhi Capitals lack world-class finishers, while a side like Gujarat Titans has plenty of inexperience and is reliant on a couple of individuals to carry the entire batting.
But then you look at the Lucknow Super Giants and go, ‘Wait, this can’t be real. This looks PERFECT. How did they manage to assemble a line-up like this?’.
In Quinton de Kock and KL Rahul, they arguably have the best opening pair in the league. Their middle-order is filled with proven power-hitters who can serve as floaters, and they also possess world-class finishers. As if all this isn’t enough already, they also bat really, really deep. Prior to the season, you feared for one slot in the middle-order but Ayush Badoni’s remarkable rise has taken care of that. Frankly, theirs is a batting unit that simply has no evident weakness.
Bearing this in mind, then, it wouldn’t be the most outlandish of suggestions to claim that they underperformed with the bat against the Mumbai Indians.
Right, it does sound like a crazy implication. After all, LSG, after losing the toss, managed to post 199. And in the end it turned out to be more than enough, for they ended up winning the contest by 18 runs.
But go back and look at how their innings progressed versus Mumbai, you’ll notice they in fact ended up leaving quite a few runs behind.
At the halfway point, Lucknow were 94/1, with two set batters at the crease. With them batting all the way down to No.8 — even their No.9 Dushmantha Chameera is capable of hitting sixes — there lay an opportunity to fully put the foot on the accelerator and maximize the score as much as possible. Eventually they managed to collect 105 off the final 10 — largely thanks to Tymal Mills, whose two overs in the second phase cost 39 runs — but if one were to ask the question whether they made the fullest use of the resources at their disposal, the answer would be a no.
As it turned out, Ayush Badoni and Jason Holder ended up not facing a single delivery, while Krunal Pandya ended up walking in on the penultimate ball of the innings. This would not have warranted a discussion had the team posted a total that was well above par — say 225 or 230 — but given Lucknow ended up not evening reaching 200 having lost only two wickets in the first 15 overs of their innings, it’s justified nitpicking and being slightly critical of how they approached their innings.
Many a time in the past two years, KL Rahul has been guilty of being over-conservative, but today was not one of those days. Rahul maintained impeccable tempo all through the innings, showed intent in abundance, kept finding the boundary ropes regularly and played close to a perfect knock.
The same cannot be said, however, about his teammate Manish Pandey, who walking in at No.3 played a puzzling knock that seemed to stall his own side’s momentum. Pandey started off his innings positively, with a thumping boundary off the first ball, but his next 28 balls ended up yielding just 34 runs. He simply was not able to take on the spinners, against whom he managed just 21 runs in the 20 balls he faced.
Some exquisite hitting from Rahul ensured that Lucknow’s run rate was close to 9.5 even when Pandey departed, but the 32-year-old’s extended yet not-so-useful stay at the crease ensured that LSG’s big hitters did not get enough time to wreak havoc.
Now, it would be convenient to pin the blame on Pandey. But really, primarily at fault here is the LSG management, who chose to be conservative by sending in Pandey at No.3 after the quick start.
At the time of de Kock’s dismissal — 52/1 in 5.3 overs — Lucknow could easily have deployed one of the floaters in an effort to relentlessly punish Mumbai. Yet they decided to send in Pandey, who across the past five seasons has shown that he is a very limited T20 batter who particularly struggles to accelerate outside the powerplay. It did not cost them on the day, but it is a decision they could very well have ended up regretting against a more confident, more efficient side.
Pandey’s knock today also brings about the question of whether Lucknow need the Karnataka man in the starting XI. In Rahul and de Kock, LSG already have two batters who can play the long innings and take up the role of an anchor; both have already done that multiple times this season. Deepak Hooda and Ayush Badoni have also shown that they are more than capable of rebuilding an innings when the need arises. In this scenario, do Lucknow really need the services of Pandey, whose best days as a T20 batter are clearly behind him?
Today they drafted him in for Krishnappa Gowtham in order to bolster the batting, but an argument can be made that the team would have been just as strong on the batting front without Pandey, and even more formidable on the bowling front with the presence of Gowtham.
Outside the Pandey innings too, there were also other moments in the first innings where Lucknow chose to play it safe despite having the option of going for the kill. At the 15-over mark, they were 150/2, with Stoinis and Rahul batting together. But despite having two world-class hitters in the middle, and despite having eight wickets in hand, they chose to play out Bumrah, taking just 5 runs. It is one thing being match aware, but when you still have the likes of Badoni, Holder, Hooda and Krunal waiting in the sheds, there is no reason to ‘play out’ any bowler, even Bumrah.
Twice now, in consecutive matches, Lucknow have failed to utilize their resources effectively. Against Rajasthan, they played it over-smart by unnecessarily sacrificing Holder, exposing him to the new ball when there was no need. That blunder cost them the game, but today Rahul’s side were lucky that the Pandey move did not come back to bite.
LSG are blessed to have a batting unit that’s formidable, but they need to be careful. The quality they possess will count for nothing should the resources not be maximized.
