LSG vs RCB, IPL 2022 Eliminator: Where KL Rahul and Co. lost the game – Firstcricket News, Firstpost

Indian Premier League, or any premium tournament on the globe for the matter, gives little regard to teams who don’t show consistency once it enters the decisive stages. Whether it’s now-rechristened Delhi Capitals or perennial underachievers Royal Challengers Bangalore, they have paid the price of not taking their winning form to the play-off stages on a number of occasions in the past.

And the same turned out to be the case for one of the new franchises Lucknow Super Giants, who largely looked a shadow of the side that was vying for the top two spots for the most part of the season. After all, they surrendered to a 14-run loss to RCB in the IPL 2022 Eliminator for an anti-climax exit from the title run.

LSG skipper KL Rahul was among those guilty of dropping catches against RCB in the IPL 2022 Eliminator. Sportzpics

Opting to bowl first, Rahul & Co. couldn’t stop RCB from scoring runs at a canter as an unlikely Rajat Patidar’s century took them to 207/4. Chasing the total, Rahul put up a fight with another half-century to take his season run tally beyond 600 but lacked the acceleration as LSG could only post 193/6 in 20 overs.

The debacle, in fact, exposed LSG fallacies that appeared to be their strength early in the tournament, this included over-dependence on KL Rahul, Quinton de Kock, and Deepak Hooda when it came to chasing a total.

Over-reliance on batting trio

Asked to chase down a huge 208 runs in a big game, LSG could have never thought beyond the trio as they have scored 65 per cent of the runs batting second, as stated by cricbuzz, in comparison to the rest of the line-up. In fact, the South African held the key among the two indigenous players as he had the best strike rate (148.97) among the three of them.

De Kock’s early departure (for mere 6 runs) made the task too tedious for Rahul and Hooda, who have piled up close to 950 runs together with this IPL but lacked the strike rate to be within the range of the required rate of 10-plus.

The duo again made a hefty contribution with Rahul scoring a 58-ball 79 and Hooda playing a 26-ball 45 but this also meant they took 14 overs to score 124 runs, which is still less than the required rate for a misfiring lower-order to work on.

Rahul’s batting, in fact, has come under the scanner before as well for leaving it too late in the run chase.

“KL Rahul’s innings is something that we’ve seen before when he was captaining Punjab Kings, for example, (and they) would fall short of a run-chase,” said former cricketer Sanjay Manrjekar on Espncricinfo.

“The scenario would be the same. You’ll have KL Rahul batting right till the very end, they would have lost three or four wickets and people like (Nicholas) Pooran would come in like Evin Lewis came in the last two overs and Krunal (Pandya) in the last, (Marcus) Stoinis in the last three. So (for them), it’s a bit working with the crumbs that are left. You’ve got to come in and try to make up for the lack of pace that the innings had.

It’s also worth pointing out that throughout the tournament LSG never settled for a regular middle-order option, especially at NO. 3. The constant reshuffle of an important position had its consequences at the stage when it matters. On Wednesday night, the responsibility fell on Manan Vohra, who was playing his second match of the season and didn’t have the form on his side to build on the momentum he created with a quick 11-ball 19 in the big chase.

However, the chase wouldn’t have been that steep if not for some poor fielding display by the losing side earlier in the first innings.

Dropping catches aplenty

No matter how cliched the term catches win matches is, it never gets old in the game. Dropping four catches — and three of them were of the centurion Rajat Patidar — is not just unacceptable but a cardinal sin.

The sub-standard display under pressure only unravelled the lack of experience of the new franchise as Patidar, along with Dinesh Karthik, ran away with the game in the death overs.

Karthik, who scored a vital 23-ball 37 to take RCB past 200, was gifted life by Rahul when the wicketkeeper-batsman was batting at just 2 runs off 6 balls.

Speaking at the end of the match, KL Rahul confessed that fielding had let the side down and it was quite obvious that this was the area that bottled up the match for them.

“I think it’s quite obvious – the reasons why we didn’t win. We let ourselves down in the field. Dropping easy catches never helps,” Rahul said during the post-match presentation ceremony.

Barring Mohsin Khan, no bowler clicked

Historically, IPL has favoured teams that have a strong bowling unit; especially at the death. Whether it’s five-time champions Mumbai Indians or their arch-rivals Chennai Super Kings, likes of Jasprit Bumrah, Lasith Malinga, Dwayne Bravo among many others have been the focal point of their success.

LSG failed to bring that to the competition with none of their bowlers picking wickets in bulk throughout the season. To make it worse, they leaked runs against RCB on the night with Mohsin Khan being the only exception with an economy rate of 6.25. The southpaw pacer’s performance, however, was no surprise as he has seldom given away runs at an economy of more than 6.50 per over.

But with all due respect to Mohsin, who finished IPL with 14 wickets in nine games, the 23-year-old bowler lacked the experience to lead from the front. The onus was in fact on the likes of Avesh Khan, Dushmantha Chameera, and Ravi Bishnoi to lead the bowling unit.

The trio gave away 143 runs in 12 overs combined in return of two wickets against RCB and seemed an easy picking for the likes of Patidar and Karthik. Avesh (1/44), who started off well earlier in the year, looked largely at sea with his express pace turning ineffective on a batting-friendly track of Eden, the same was true for Chameera (0/54) as well.

The biggest disappointment, however, was Bishnoi (0/45), whose overuse of googly and lack of variation has made him easy prey for the batters. Finishing the IPL with 13 wickets in 14 games, with his worse personal economy in last three IPLs, is not a satisfactory return for a spinner, who is touted to be the face of Indian spin bowling in the future.

Rahul’s captaincy call

Rahul was seen as the future leader since he took over as captain of Punjab Kings last year. It ultimately earned him a vice-captain role with India in white-ball cricket and was followed by leading role at LSG this season.

However, his runs galore over the two seasons have failed to garb his leadership inefficiencies. Whether it’s not settling for a regular batting order or ineffective bowling changes, LSG skipper has gone from hero to zero in the course of the season as far as captaincy is concerned.

The decision to bowl first in a big game, that too when his side has failed to chase in their last five games, leaves room for a little sympathy for Rahul, the captain.

While dropping catches was not enough, the decision to introduce Bishnoi in the death overs looked nothing less than a blunder as Patidar took 26 runs off the wrist spinner in five balls.

Chasing the total, Rahul, and mentor Gautam Gambhir, didn’t really go into the match with a plan B as upon de Kock’s departure, a bold decision to promote a big hitter up the order wasn’t taken despite the presence of Evin Lewis and Marcus Stoinis.

Saying that, Rahul is still a young leader and has all the time he needs to take lessons from his mistake with the hope to return stronger when they, if the pandemic permits, get to play in front of a home crowd in Lucknow in IPL 2023.

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