IPL 2022: Meme-fest on Twitter after KL Rahul’s captaincy decision costs Lucknow Super Giants vs Gujarat Titans | Cricket

Meme makers had a field day on Twitter after Lucknow Super Giants captain KL Rahul’s decision to continue with his spinners in the slog overs backfired and perhaps cost them the match in the Indian Premier League (IPL 2022) against Gujarat Titans on Tuesday. In the battle of the debutants, LSG had done a commendable job to drag the match right down to the wire despite playing catch-up ever since Mohammed Shami ran through their top-order.

Lucknow in fact had the upper hand when the match boiled down to its last five overs, mainly due to some overcautious batting from the Titans middle-order and some excellent bowling from LSG spinners Krunal Pandya, Ravi Bishnoi and Deepak Hooda.

But what was Lucknow’s boon till then suddenly turned out to be a bane when captain Rahul continued with Hooda’s part-time spin in the slog overs.

With Gujarat needing 68 off 30 balls Rahul threw the ball to Hooda. That over cost 22 as Rahul Tewatia hit the off-spinner for two sixes and as many fours to completely change the momentum of the match.

Captain Rahul, however, continued to back his spinners, who had till the 15th over conceded only 43 runs in their 9 overs and picked up two wickets.

Bishnoi was asked to bowl the 17th over, which meant either Dushmantha Chameera, LSG’s best seamer on display, or Avesh Khan would not complete his quota.

Tewatia took full advantage of that and collected 17 runs from Bishnoi’s last over. Gujarat now needed 29 in the last three overs. The game was still not out of LSG’s grip but the last two overs from the spinners that yielded 39 runs had swung the momentum towards Gujarat to a great extent.

In the end, young Abhinav Manohar and Tewatia held their nerve and managed to seal the victory with three balls to spare.

Rahul’s captaincy came under heavy criticism after the match.

Here are some of the memes on KL Rahul’s captaincy shared on Twitter

“It was a phenomenal game. What a way to start the campaign. Starting off like that with the bat was not ideal but the way we recovered was phenomenal. It gives us so much confidence when the batters in the middle and lower order can do the job. We know with the Wankhede the ball can do a bit at the start and if we can get through that it will be ideal. We couldn’t have started the campaign in any better way,” Rahul said.