Did KL Rahul's Inning Cost Lucknow The Match Against Bangalore

The Eliminator match of the IPL 2022 lived up to its hype as Royal Challengers Bangalore defeated Lucknow Super Giants by 14 runs to progress to the Qualifier 2 where they will meet Rajasthan Royals. 

The match at Eden Gardens saw 400 runs being scored in 40 overs of the game despite the game starting late due to a bit of drizzling at the beginning. 

The Super Giants' will be hurting after the loss since it was a close affair and the according to what was their situation, Lucknow should've won from that scenario. 

As has been the case in most T20 games, the team which bats better wins. For LSG: KL Rahul, Quinton de Kock, and Deepak Hooda had over 60% of the team runs before this match. It was quite clear that Lucknow's chances of winning the game were wholly dependent on how these three batted. 

Rahul correctly chose to field first according to what happened in Qualifier 1. However, the pitch played relatively better in the first inning than what was in the earlier game. With the ball coming nicely onto the bat, Rajat Patidar played a phenomenal knock to get RCB past the 200-run mark - a par score according to the conditions.

The 208-run chase always demanded a scoring rate of at least nine runs an over. Lucknow lost two wickets inside the powerplay but scored 62 runs. It was the perfect start according to what the target demanded. However, it is between 7 to 13 overs where LSG lost the track completely. 

In between these seven overs, Lucknow batters - KL Rahul and Deepak Hooda - only struck two boundaries (a six and a four) and only scored 47 runs. After 13 overs, the scorecard read - 109/2, meaning they needed 99 runs in 36 balls with eight wickets in hand. 

They got themselves into a tricky situation by not hitting enough boundaries when they should have but they kept on scoring less than seven runs per over. 

In the 14th over, Hooda and Rahul decided to switch gears as they scored 16 runs off Hazlewood's over. In the next over, Hooda smacked two sixes off Wanindu Hasaranga in the first three balls and tried to go for another hit but got out. Marcus Stoinis, however, finished that over with a six to get 18 runs from that. 

The 14th to 17th over saw Lucknow score 58 runs while losing a wicket as they crawled back into the run chase. In the last three overs, LSG needed 41 runs - gettable but could've been totally avoidable had they paced the inning better. 

Harshal Patel has been one of the best slog over bowlers in the last two years and he displayed why yesterday. In the 18th and 20th over, Harshal only conceded 17 runs and got Rahul out. 

Rahul had scored his fifty in 43 balls and eventually scored 79 runs in 58 balls - an SR of 136.2 while chasing a target of 208 runs. He hit three fours and five sixes. Rahul took up nearly half of the total balls out of 120 to score just 79 runs and hoped the rest of the batters scored the remaining 129 runs in 62 balls. 

"I think it's quite obvious - the reasons why we didn't win. We let ourselves down in the field. Dropping easy catches never helps," Rahul told post-match. 

"I think now looking back, it was about two big hits in the middle overs that could've gotten us over the line. They bowled really well, Harshal's two overs in the middle overs pushed as back a little bat."

Also Read: IPL 2022 - Scorecard

"Fielding let us down very badly today. Dropping catching cost us extra 30-40 runs but we fought hard and tried to chase down the target with the best of our abilities and were just two hits away and we could have gotten that in the middle overs,".