“I have no words,” says KL Rahul after SRH’s Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma annihilate LSG

Sunrisers Hyderabad’s Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma decimated Lucknow Super Giants as they scored 167 runs in just 9.4 overs to help SRH to a 10-wicket win over LSG at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Hyderabad on Wednesday.

After LSG put on 165 on the board, the SRH openers came all guns blazing and closed the match in just about 45 minutes into the chase. Both Head and Sharma scored 148 runs in boundaries, off just 30 balls (16 fours and 14 sixes) as LSG were just left shell shocked.

LSG captain KL Rahul said the batting from SRH was unreal and he was lost for words. “I’m lost for words. We’ve watched that batting on TV but that was unreal. Everything was hitting the middle of the bat, kudos to their skill, they’ve worked very hard on their six-hitting,” he said after the match.

Rahul said the SRH batters did not allow his team to settle in and the only way they thought they could come back into the game was by taking early wickets. “They (Head and Abhishek) didn’t give a chance to see what the wicket was playing like in the second innings. It did not change much, but that mindset and freedom to tee off from ball one was great as it was difficult to stop them. The only way to stop them was to take wickets in the powerplay and we didn’t do that,” he conceded.

Rahul won the toss and batted first and when questioned whether it was the right decision, given the way the match had progressed, the LSG skipper said there are always doubts and questions when the team loses and added that if LSG had scored big too, SRH would have chased it down. “Once you’re on the losing side, always question marks but we thought it was a good decision to put runs on the board. Ayush (Badoni) and Nicholas (Pooran) fought well to put 166 on the board, but if we’d got 240 or 250 too, it seemed like they’d get it,” he concluded.

SRH are now placed third on the IPL 2024 points table with 14 points from 12 matches (7 wins, 5 losses).