Nicholas Pooran blazes 62 off 19 balls in IPL thriller

BANGALORE: Lucknow Super Giants grabbed a run off the final ball to beat Royal Challengers Bangalore by one wicket in a high-scoring Indian Premier League game on Monday.

Lucknow reached 213-9 in a nervy final over and overhauled Bangalore’s challenging total of 212-2.

Lucknow top the leaderboard with six points from four games. Bangalore slipped to No 7 with one win from three matches.

Needing five off Harshal Patel’s last over, Lucknow lost the wickets of Mark Wood and Jaydev Unadkat and needed one run from the final ball with one wicket left.

Patel missed an opportunity to run out Ravi Bishnoi at the non-striker’s end which could have thrown the game into the super over but had to bowl the final delivery again. The last-wicket pair of Avesh Khan and Bishnoi scampered for a bye as wicketkeeper Dinesh Karthik couldn’t gather the ball cleanly.

Lucknow had all but sealed the game on the back of Nicholas Pooran’s 19-ball knock of 62 runs that featured seven sixes and four boundaries. But Pooran’s dismissal in the 17th over brought Bangalore back into the game with Lucknow needing 24 runs off the last three overs.

Pooran, who hit this season’s fastest half-century off 15 balls, holed out at deep square leg off a high full toss from Mohammed Siraj (3-22).

Siraj and Wayne Parnell (3-41), who was returning after playing his last IPL game in 2014, had put Lucknow on the back foot with their early strikes. But Marcus Stoinis revived the chase with an aggressive 65 off 30 balls and then Pooran’s powerful strikes dented Bangalore further as spinner Karn Sharma went for 1-48 off his three overs.

“The way Stoinis and Pooran played, if we have two points today it’s because of them,” Lucknow skipper Lokesh Rahul said.

Earlier, Bangalore was asked to bat first and their top three batters scored heavily with Faf du Plessis remaining unbeaten on 79 off 46 while Virat Kohli (61 off 44) and Glenn Maxwell (59 off 29) also got rapid half-centuries. Kohli and Du Plessis punished fast bowler Avesh (0-53) before Amit Mishra broke the stand when Kohli was caught at deep midwicket in the 12th over after adding 96 runs for the first-wicket stand.

Maxwell then smashed six sixes and three boundaries in his rapid knock before he was bowled off the penultimate delivery from Mark Wood.

“Disappointed, I mean obviously they played really well through the middle there but I thought we fought back beautifully,” Du Plessis said. “I threw all our weapons we had at them.”

Summarised Scores: Royal Challengers Bangalore 212/2 (Faf du Plessis 79 not out, Virat Kohli 61, Glenn Maxwell 59,Amit Mishra 1-18) vs Lucknow Super Giants 213/9 (Marcus Stoinis 65, Nicholas Pooran 62, Mohammed Siraj 3-22).