Lucknow Super Giants’ young talent Ayush Badoni announced his arrival in the Indian Premier League with a blockbuster-style on Monday as he helped his team to post a competitive total against Gujarat Titans at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai.
Deepak Hooda 55 off 41 balls and Ayush Badoni 54 off 41 balls helped the KL Rahul-led side to recover to a respectable 1586 after Mohammed Shami 3/25 shattered their top-order. Though, the Lucknow-based franchise lost the game to Gujarat Titans but the solid fight put up by Ayush Badoni and Deepak Hooda made the game more interesting.
Ayush hit four fours and three sixes in his entertaining knock. He smashed Gujarat captain Hardik Pandya to all the corners of the ground and got to his first IPL 50 by pulling a 146.9kmph Lockie Ferguson bouncer for a SIX.
Later, speaking in the post-match press conference, Badoni revealed how mentor Gautam Gambhir backed him and asked him to play his natural game.
“Gautam bhaiya backed me a lot,”
Badoni added: “He told me to play just my natural game. He told me you won’t get the one-odd match, but you will get a proper run. He also told me, ‘you don’t need to play according to the situation. There are senior players to do that. You show us your natural game’.”
Badoni was roped in by Lucknow Super Giants for Rs 20 lakh in the IPL 2022 mega auction after going unsold for three consecutive years. Talking about the same, he said:
“My name had been coming for three consecutive years and I was going unsold every time. I had attended camps of 2-3 teams but I didn’t know if I’d be picked. Lucknow eventually picked me and I am very grateful.”
Also Read: Parthiv Patel Shared A Cryptic Post After Making Controversial Statement About Virat Kohli
