IPL 2024: It was hard to stop them – KL Rahul on Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma’s explosive batting

Lucknow Super Giants captain KL Rahul admitted it was hard to stop Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma after their 10-wicket loss at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium, Hyderabad on Wednesday. LSG posted a below-par score of 165 runs on the board after Rahul decided to bat first.

However, SRH chased down the total in only 9.4 overs and won with 62 balls to spare. Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma were able to hit the ground running as both of them took the attack to the opposition bowlers.

Head took the game head-on as he completed his fifty off just 16 balls whereas Abhishek reached his half-century off 19 balls. Head went on to score 89 off just 30 balls with the help of eight fours and as many sixes, whereas Sharma scored 75 off just 28 balls with the help of eight fours and six maximums.

The left-handed duo added 107 runs in the Powerplay overs, which is the second-highest score in the first six overs in the IPL history, as none of the LSG bowlers could have an impact. All the LSG bowlers conceded their runs at an economy rate of more than 14.

KL Rahul said after the loss, “Am lost for words. We have watched that kind of batting on tv. But this is unreal batting. Everything seemed to find the middle of the bat. Kudos to their skills. They have worked hard on their six hitting skills. They didn’t give us a chance to know what the pitch played in the second innings.”

Rahul added, “It was hard to stop them as they teed off from ball one. Once you are on the losing side, there are questions marks on the decisions taken. We were 40-50 runs short. When we lost wickets in the powerplay, we couldn’t get any momentum. Ayush and Nicky batted well to get us to 166. But even if we would have got 240, they could have chased it as well.”

Lucknow Super Giants will next take on Delhi Capitals at the Arun Jaitley Stadium, Delhi on Tuesday.