“Pitch” was the word trending on Twitter by the time the match number 10 of IPL 2023, between Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) and Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) ended on Friday, April 7th. Because it was a proper black soil mudfest at the Ekana stadium in Lucknow, still not as bad and terrible as the India-New Zealand game earlier this year at this venue.
Having won the toss and elected to bat first, Aiden Markram, the new SRH captain, had the apt idea to putting up a decent total – anything around 150 would have been really tough to chase down – and get the hosts under pressure.
However, Krunal Pandya had other ideas: take out the right-handers of the SRH batting. He dismissed three of them: both the openers, Mayank Agarwal and Anmolpreet Singh, and the SRH skipper, Aiden Markram, with a peach of a delivery that pitched on full length, turned and kissed passed Markram’s outside edge of a defense straight and knocked the off-stump out of the ground.
Krunal Pandya was later involved in a fighting partnership with skipper KL Rahul, the duo adding 55 (38) and effectively killing the chase of 122 runs. The left-hander scored 34 runs off 23 balls, and duly bagged the Player of the Match award for his terrific all-round performance.
Rahul Tripathi was the highest scorer for SRH, scoring 35 runs followed by opener Anmolpreet Singh, who scored 31, as SRH managed only 122/8 in their 20 overs. The spin trio of Krunal Pandya, Amit Mishra, and Bishnoi took 7 wickets of the 8 wickets that fell of SRH batters.
LSG were just fine in their chase, skipper KL Rahul marshaling a successful chase by scoring 35 runs off 31 balls, before Adil Rashid dismissed Rahul and Romario Shepherd on consecutive balls late in the chase but couldn’t turn the result.
Fans trolled SRH heavily on Twitter for their embarrassing losses – this following up from the 72-run defeat to Rajasthan Royals earlier.
SRH vs LSG This led to a spate of memes on Twitter:
Mood while watching SRH matches #LSGvsSRH #CricketTwitter pic.twitter.com/kEBxHjcCkj
— Anurag Dwivedi 🏏 (@AnuragxCricket) April 7, 2023
"Karma is a B!tch"
The downfall of SRH is started from here pic.twitter.com/AIm9ZiLrBM
— Ankit Pathak 🇮🇳 (@ankit_acerbic) April 7, 2023
https://twitter.com/12th_khiladi/status/1644270345069756416?s=20
Ok 3 holidays 2 SRH matches 🔥https://t.co/mMepFi5tWC
— Ted (@ramanaXtweets) April 7, 2023
He gave this shit team an IPL Trophy as a captain and used to win Orange cap for Fun and Just one bad season, they disrespected & kicked this man out of the team. SRH downfall started from here. pic.twitter.com/dSatld4LSZ
— Sayam Ahmad (@sayam_ahmad_) April 7, 2023
https://twitter.com/Heyhari_/status/1644350181859549186?s=20
Different moods of SRH owner and SRH fans in this match so far#IPL2023 #LSGvSRH pic.twitter.com/Q8K2mbU69R
— All About Cricket (@allaboutcric_) April 7, 2023
SRH's performance in 1 picture: pic.twitter.com/MUW8OS3EqT
— Manya (@CSKian716) April 7, 2023
Once upon a time these 4 used to play for SRH & now SRH is becoming a irrelevant team in IPL . Mass downfall pic.twitter.com/LlWWTDEuHe
— Sohel Says. (@Sohel_Creates) April 7, 2023
Losing skipper Aiden Markram said: “Not enough runs, tried to get to 150-160 but lost too many wickets and didn’t get any momentum going. We realized it wasn’t going to be a great wicket to bat in terms of history, but we were happy to fight. They bowled brilliantly according to the conditions. Good effort from our bowlers, we didn’t give them enough runs to play with but they fought hard. (On the next home game) Different conditions once again, the team has played there already. The Punjab Kings are flying high but Sunday is a chance to pinch them.”
