Mumbai വേണം This is how it should be when it debuts! With Lucknow needing 15 runs to win in the last over, Rajasthan Royals and India fans cheered on Madhya Pradesh’s fast bowler Kuldeep Sen, who beat Rajasthan by a huge margin by Australia’s Marcus Stones.
In the last 2 overs against Rajasthan, Lucknow needed 34 runs with 2 wickets in hand. Strike bowlers Prasidh Krishna and Kuldeep Sen have one over each left. Captain Sanju decides to bowl the famous 19th over. Prasidh conceded 19 runs in that over, including 2 sixes and a four.
Kuldeep bowled in the first match of the IPL, taking on the daunting task of defending 15 runs in the 20th over against a well-touched Stones.
Lucknow won by 14 runs off 5 balls with Avesh Khan scoring a single off the first ball. Stones strike out well, finishing the game in 3 shots. Moments when Lucknow fans firmly believed that the Stones would ‘finish’ Kuldeep, who was unfamiliar with playing on an international platform.
But in the next 3 balls Kuldeep Sen showed his class. Surviving the pressure, Kuldeep’s 3 dot balls in a row left Stones helpless.
With that, Lucknow needs an impossible target of 14 off 2 balls. The Rajasthan players, who had secured the victory, had already started celebrating. Kuldeep was then bowled by Stones in the 5th over in an attempt to avoid extra runs, but the moral victory was still with Kuldeep.
The Stones’ ball bounced off the back of the wicket and into the boundary. Kuldeep, who missed the last ball of the innings, was bowled by the Stones for a six over the square leg boundary, but it only served to ease Lucknow’s defeat burden. Still, Kuldeep’s face looked the same as it did in the last over!
Kuldeep started the first over with a quick start to the surprise of the fans. The Yorker, Quinton de Kok, defended by working hard at Kuldeep’s speed of 146.5 meters. Later, Deepak Hooda was bowled out and Kuldeep took his first wicket in the IPL.
Kuldeep Sen also took one wicket for 35 runs in 4 overs.
The 25-year-old pacer, who plays domestic cricket for Madhya Pradesh, was acquired by Rajasthan for Rs 20 lakh in a mega star auction. In Twenty20 cricket, he has taken 12 wickets in 18 matches at an economy rate of 8.20. With Nathan Coulternail returning from injury, after Trent Bolt, Prasidh Krishna, Yusvendra Chehal and Ravichandran Ashwin, we can believe that Kuldeep will be able to resolve the 5th bowler crisis in Rajasthan at least to some extent!
English Summary: IPL 2022; ‘Calm’ Kuldeep Sen helps RR pull off thrilling win over LSG