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A moment of bowling magic marked the initiation of Lucknow Super Giants and Gujarat Titans into IPL with Mohammed Shami sending back rival skipper KL Rahul, caught behind with a cracking away swinger, off the very first ball. The two new franchises had shelled out ₹12,715 crore collectively to earn an entry into the T20 league.
It was GT who went on to win by five wickets at the Wankhede stadium on Monday, chasing down 159 courtesy a late dash by Rahul Tewatia (40*–24b) and David Miller (30—21b) through a 34-ball 60-run fifth-wicket partnership and last over heroics by Abhinav Sadarangani (15*–7b).
For LSG, Dushmanta Chameera with the ball had taken it on himself to add to the highlights package, producing a yorker that hit the bottom of Vijay Shankar’s off-stump to pick his second wicket in the powerplay. Skipper Hardik Pandya (33—28b) attempted to take the match deep but lost the battle to elder brother Krunal, holing out to long-off.
Deepak Hooda’s off-spin soon tricked Matthew Wade (30—29b). That’s when Tewatia and Miller took centrestage, biding their time until the 15th over when 68 runs were needed off five overs. Tewatia, no stranger to late heists, smashed a 6 and 4 off Hooda before handing it over to Miller, who produced a 4 and 6 to take 22 runs off the 16th over, swinging the momentum in GT’s favour. The two left-handers followed it up with a 17-run over bowled by young leg-spinner Ravi Bishnoi, which included a reverse-swept six by Tewatia.
But it was Shami who had started it all. The excitement of watching the white ball beat bat, move in the air, deviate off the surface hits fever pitch for it is not a common occurrence. Shami may not be the most natural of T20 bowlers, but when he finds rhythm with the new ball, he’s hard to stop. Making the most of early moisture and bounce that Wankhede pitch had to offer, Shami ran through the LSG top order. In his second over, he bowled the same delivery. It came in to left-handed Quinton de Kock (7) and broke his defence to hit middle-stump. Bowling through the powerplay, another Shami over, another clean bowled. It didn’t take long for the India bowler to work out Manish Pandey, who was undone by an inswinger, taking his off-stump.
IPL 2022: Mohammed Shami earns massive praise from India legends after top show against Lucknow Super Giants
In between this Shami madness, Varun Aaron’s bouncer saw the back of Evin Lewis (10), courtesy a brilliant Shubman Gill catch running back 31 yards from his mid-wicket position. On paper, bowling was clearly the Ahmedabad franchise’s stronger suit, and by leaving LSG reeling at 32/4 in the first six, they had made the best use of it.
Having forced the opposition to rebuild, Pandya introduced his in-the-news bowling arm to deliver three overs on a trot at good speeds. That Pandya the bowler hadn’t gone away was a pleasing sight but he ran into young Aayush Badoni’s smart ambush in the 14th over. He took him down with four boundaries. Together, Deepak Hooda (55—41b) and Badoni (54—41b) staged an 87-run fifth wicket stand to resurrect the LSG innings, lifting them up to 158.
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