Rajasthan Royals’ Trent Boult looked in exceptional form as he picked two back-to-back wickets in the very first over of Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) innings on Sunday. Boult produced an amazing in-swinger to dismiss LSG captain KL Rahul off the first ball and then picked Krishnappa Gowtham off his second delivery of the same over. The early fall of wickets provided Rajasthan Royals with the much-needed upper hand it needed after failing to put on a challenging target on the board.
After the match, Boult revealed that it was his teammate James ‘Jimmy’ Neesham, who gave him the idea to bowl around the wicket to KL Rahul. In the post-match interview, Boult said that he doesn’t want to give Neesham the credit, but admitted it was his idea to bowl around the wicket. The Kiwi added that they decided on it at breakfast in the morning. Boult finished the game with a bowling figure of 4-0-30-2.
“It was a late call at breakfast in the morning and without giving Jimmy Neesham too much of a plug, it was his idea. KL is a quality player and he has probably hit my number many times and played really nicely against me. But obviously nice for a plan like that to come off and it’s always nice to uproot the stumps. My role with the new ball is to try and be as aggressive as possible and take wickets in the powerplay and today was a good feeling to get a couple there,” Boult said.
RR vs LSG
Lucknow Super Giants skipper KL Rahul won the toss and chose to field first. Rajasthan batted first and scored 165/6 in 20 overs, thanks to a brilliant performance from Shimron Hetmyer. Devdutt Padikkal also played a part, scoring 29 runs off 29 balls. Jason Holder and Krishnappa Gowtham of Lucknow both took two wickets each, while Avesh Khan scalped one.
Lucknow failed to chase down the target in the second innings, being reduced to 162/8 in 20 overs, owing to some excellent bowling from Yuzvendra Chahal and Trent Boult. Chahal picked up four wickets, whereas Boult picked two.
