Kanpur: In an interesting match of the UP T20 League, Lucknow Falcons defeated Kanpur Superstars on the last ball and gifted victory to their fans.
This match between Kanpur Super Stars and Lucknow Falcons was expected to be very interesting from the very beginning. Lucknow won the toss and decided to bowl first. Batting first, Kanpur Superstars gave a target of 221 runs, in response to which Lucknow won the match by 2 wickets, hitting a six in the last ball. At the same time, the hero of Lucknow was Aaradhya Yadav. He played a brilliant inning of 50 runs.
Kanpur superstars batted first
Kanpur Superstars, who came to bat first, had a brilliant performance. Kanpur Superstars openers Saurabh Dubey (56) and Ansh Yadav (61) wreaked havoc on the Lucknow Falcons bowlers with their innings and scored the highest powerplay score of UP T20. However, Saurabh Dubey’s attack ended in the eighth over. He hit six fours and four sixes in only 28 balls.
Sameer Rizvi took the lead by scoring 69 runs and Ansh Yadav supported him to maintain the attack. As soon as the middle overs started, Ansh Yadav completed his half-century in 33 balls and Sameer Rizvi achieved this feat in 24 balls. At the end of 15 overs, Kanpur Superstars had made a huge score of 173/1. Kartikeya Jaiswal of Lucknow Falcons took wickets on consecutive balls of the 19th over. Karthikeya dismissed captain Akshdeep Nath (2) and Pranjal Saini (0). However, with the help of Sandeep Tomar’s 16 runs in the last over, Kanpur Superstars made a strong score of 221/5.
Aaradhya lashed out in response to Kanpur
In reply, Lucknow Falcons scored 67/1 in the powerplay. Undeterred by the tough target in front of them, Anjaneya Suryavanshi and Harsh Tyagi played a brilliant innings of 46 runs. This partnership was broken when Suryavanshi’s innings of 39 runs in 15 balls was stopped by Ankit Rajput. Captain Priyam Garg was in excellent form at number three. At the score of 10 overs, the game was looking in favor of Lucknow Falcons at 114/1.
With Harsh Tyagi coming in a supporting role, Priyam Garg completed his half-century in just 22 balls after Kanpur’s Ankit Chauhan made 17 runs. Soon after this, the trend of the match was seen to reverse. Lucknow lost three wickets in three overs. After this, Kritiya Singh was out for 2 runs and Ankur Chauhan and Akshdeep Nath were out at the hands of well-established Harsh Tyagi.
At the end of the 14th over, the score of Lucknow Falcons was 148/4. Aaradhya Yadav took the responsibility of taking the innings to the finish line. Hardeep Singh played a brilliant inning of 16 runs in just six balls. With three overs remaining, Lucknow needed 33 runs. In the 18th over, Aaradhya Yadav helped in scoring 14 runs. Vineet Panwar maintained control of the match by dismissing Vipraj Nigam for 6 runs and Vikas Singh for 5 runs in the 19th over.
Lucknow needed 11 runs in the last over and after two dot balls, under pressure, Aaradhya hit a six. His catch was missed on two consecutive balls. Due to which 2-2 runs were scored on each ball. Only one run was required off the last ball. Aaradhya Yadav crossed the extra cover boundary to complete his half-century and register a thrilling win for Lucknow Falcons.