As it happened: LSG chase down 191 against SRH in 16.1 overs

Abdul Samad looked in a hurry and hit Zampa for a four and a six to take LSG within two runs of their target at the end of the 16th over. Their win was delayed only by the strategic time out. Ishan Kishan, who had never bowled previously in the IPL, took the ball after the break and Miller lofted his first ball over extra cover to wrap up the game.

Chasing down 191 with 23 balls and five wickets to spare will surely act as a balm to the wounds SRH inflicted on LSG last season when Abhishek and Head had chased down 166 in just 9.4 overs.

It's Harshal again, this time with the ball - a high full toss. Pant tries to smash it on the leg side but the ball hits the outside edge, near the toe of the bat, and goes towards short third where Shami takes the catch. Pant is sure it is high enough for a no-ball but the ball-tracking shows it would have been below the waist height had Pant been standing upright at the crease. He was well outside his crease here.

However, Abdul Samad hit a four and a six in the rest of the over to make it 15 required from 30 balls.

Surely the catch of the tournament so far. Zampa bowled one around off and middle stump. Badoni went for the slog sweep but ended up top-edging it towards midwicket. Harshal, who was at the deep-midwicket boundary, sprinted in, got to the ball, took the catch with both hands, and completed it with a slide.

David Miller is the new batter. Pant at the other end. LSG need only 37 from seven overs.

Marsh was playing second fiddle to Pooran, but with Pooran back in the hut and Pant new to the crease, he stepped up and hit back-to-back fours off Cummins. The second of those boundaries took him to his fifty - the second in as many games - off 29 balls. But two balls later, Cummins had him holing out to long-on.

LSG have two new batters at the crease - Pant and Badoni - but they now need less than run a ball, 53 from 54 balls.

After a long Harshal over that comprised three wides and went for 15, Cummins has struck for his side. Bowling around the wicket, he has trapped Pooran lbw with a full ball. The batter went for the review but replay showed the ball pitched just outside off stump, struck Pooran in line of the stumps and would have taken out middle and leg. Pooran made 70 off 26.

Cummins is fired up and welcomes Rishabh Pant, his opposite number, with a 140.6kph bouncer. Pant somehow manages to get away unscathed. Cummins follows it up with an even quicker bouncer, 142.4kph. Pant once again survives.

LSG, though, are on 120 for 2 after nine overs and need only 71 from 66 balls. SRH need more wickets.

And it's the fastest fifty of this season - Pooran brings it up with a six off Zampa. Zampa then goes wide outside off, ensuring he stays away from Pooran's hitting arc. But it's too wide and he has to bowl it again. He tries another wide delivery; Pooran reaches out for it and hits it for yet another six before guiding one past short fine leg.

After seven overs, LSG have mowed down half the target. They are on 96 for 1 and need 95 from 13 overs.

Meanwhile, SRH have brought in Adam Zampa as their Impact Player, and he is into the action straightaway. Travis Head goes out.

Bringing on a left-arm orthodox spinner with Pooran in the middle is always a risk. With Marsh on strike, Cummins went for it, and Abhishek gave away just five runs off the first four balls.

Then came Pooran on strike and slog-swept the remaining two balls over the midwicket boundary. He has now hit seven sixes off nine balls against Abhishek.

After two quiet overs, Pooran gets the ball rolling with two sixes and a four off Simarjeet Singh in the third over. Shami, too, comes in for the punishment with Pooran hitting the first ball of the fourth over for four.

Marsh, who came in as the Impact Player for LSG, was 7 off seven till then. But he took joined in by hitting Shami for two straight sixes in three balls.

SRH have got their defence off to a great start. Markram had got a life in the first over when Cummins dived to his right at extra cover to create a run-out chance but missed the direct hit, and Abhishek, the bowler, didn't collect the ball either.

But Shami ended his innings in the next over, the batter chipping it straight to mid-off.

SRH finish on 190 for 9. The last two overs bringing just ten runs. Shardul Thakur finishes with 4 for 34, his best figures in the IPL and he now has the purple cap too. Mind you, he went unsold at the auction.

"The plan was to go hard at SRH batters and take early wickets," Shardul says.

Meanwhile, 190 might look like a below-par total, but we have been spoiled of late. It's still a competitive total and SRH have got the bowling to defend it.

Cummins smashes his third ball for a six as well but is caught at short third off the next. Avesh Khan the bowler.

Sampath Bandarupalli tells me Cummins is on the fourth batter to hit his first three balls for a six. The other three are:

Sunil Narine vs RCB, 2021
Nicholas Pooran vs SRH, 2023
MS Dhoni vs MI, 2024

Verma kept attacking. After hitting Bishnoi for back-to-back sixes, he repeated the feat against Rathi in the following over. Trying to go for a third six, he holed out, for 36 off 13. Two balls later, Shardul had Abhinav Manohar caught at deep point to make it 156 for 7 in the 17th over.

However, Cummins hit Shardul for back-to-back sixes off the first two balls he faced to keep the ball rolling, or rather flying.

This is how the last three overs have gone:

Before the start of the match, many expected SRH to post the first 300-plus total of the IPL. They had posted 286 for 6 in their previous game and LSG were missing a couple of first-choice bowlers.

But right now, it looks like SRH may struggle to post even 200. Reddy hadn't looked fluent; he was on 32 off 27 balls. He looked to go big against Bishnoi but missed the ball altogether and was bowled.

SRH still have two powerful hitters in the middle: Aniket Verma and Abhinav Manohar. The shot Reddy failed to execute, Verma nails that twice in two balls for two straight sixes.

A couple of days ago we saw Rahul Tewatia getting run out at the non-striker's end against Punjab Kings when the ball deflected off bowler Arshdeep Singh's fingers onto the stumps. But this is even bizarre. It was a lot full toss outside off stump and Reddy smashed it to the left of the bowler. Prince, the bowler, tried to take the catch but ended up dropping it. But wait, the ball somehow found its way onto the non-striker's stumps. Klaasen wasn't expecting that and was well outside his crease.

Prince is wincing in pain but the Klaasen wicket is surely an effective balm.

... in the 11th over (in kph): 100, 101, 101, 104, 103, 104

Despite Klaasen picking up a boundary, the over costs just seven runs. As a result, SRH's run rate has dropped down to 9.36 - they are 103 for 3 after 11.

Reddy and Klaasen have got their eye in. Reddy is on 23 off 15 and Klaasen, having hit a six off legspinner Digvesh Rathi, on 14 off 11.

SRH are on 96 for 3 after ten overs. Do we call it a win for LSG, given how everyone expected it to go?

He falls for 47, off 28 balls. Prince Yadav is the bowler, making a mess of the stumps as Head looks to smash a full and straight delivery. What a batter to dismiss for your first IPL wicket!

That brings Heinrich Klaasen to the crease. He devours legspin but isn't shabby against fast bowlers either.

Namooh Shah from our stats team has dug out the list of players who were out for a duck after a hundred in the previous innings in the IPL:

Yusuf Pathan, 2010
Suresh Raina, 2013
Shane Watson, 2018-19
Venkatesh Iyer, 2023
Marcus Stoinis, 2024
Ishan Kishan, Today

It's all happening out here in Hyderabad. Wickets, hat-trick ball, sixes and now a drop.

Pant brings in Ravi Bishnoi for the last over of the powerplay. Head wants to make the full use of it and slog-sweeps the first ball towards long-on. It's more of a top edge, and Pooran seems to have settled under it. A fairly regulation catch at this level but the ball pops out of his hands.

After nearly a mix-up on the next ball, Head lofts Bishnoi over extra cover for his third six. He shows the same disdain to the next ball and drills it back towards the bowler, who hurts his finger on the left hand while trying to stop it. The physio has a quick look - it's nothing serious.

Head smashes the following ball, too, in the direction of the bowler. This one is in the air and Bishnoi sticks out his right hand. It doesn't stick. So technically, LSG have dropped Head twice in one over.

There is no stopping Head. He starts the Avesh over by launching him over long-on before carving him over covers - for the first two sixes of the match. He ends it with a four over covers.

SRH 45 for 2 after four

We told you Shardul was looking for wickets, and he gets two in two balls in his second over. However, these did not come via the full length and swing. In fact, he dug one in short to Abhishek Sharma, who went for the pull and found Nicholas Pooran at the deep-square-leg boundary.

Ishan Kishan, fresh from a blazing hundred in the previous game, was caught down the leg side off a length ball.

Nitish Reddy faced the hat-trick ball, with a slip in place. Shardul went for the yorker and almost nailed it. But Reddy was good enough to get his bat down and squeeze it out on the leg side for a single.

Two wickets in the over do not mean Head is going to change his approach. Shardul, looking for swing, ends up bowling a lot full toss and Head belts it down the ground four. Nitish also picks up a four off the last ball to make it 12 from the over.

Shardul Thakur is looking for swing with the new ball. His first ball is full outside off and is lucky that Head smashes it straight towards extra cover. The second ball is full again. Head doesn't miss out this time and launches it over the bowler's head for four.

Shardul knows the only way to stop Head is to dismiss him. So he aims for the full length again but he ends up bowling two full tosses. Luckily for him, they cost just one run. A single on the last ball as well means just six runs from the first over.

"Heads," says Rishabh Pant, and Heads it is. LSG will chase. "The way our team is poised, we want to chase. No matter how many runs they score, we are going to chase it down."

LSG made two changes: Avesh Khan and Abdul Samad come in for M Siddharth and Shahbaz Ahmed. The reason behind leaving out Siddharth could be that SRH's top three are all left-hand batters.

Sunrisers Hyderabad have gone in unchanged.

Both teams named three overseas players in their respective XIs. So expect Adam Zampa to come in as Impact Player for SRH and Mitchell Marsh for LSG in the second half.

Sunrisers Hyderabad: 1 Travis Head, 2 Abhishek Sharma, 3 Ishan Kishan (wk), 4 Nitish Kumar Reddy, 5 Heinrich Klaasen, 6 Aniket Verma, 7 Abhinav Manohar, 8 Pat Cummins (capt), 9 Simarjeet Singh, 10 Harshal Patel, 11 Mohammed Shami

Impact Players options: Adam Zampa, Sachin Baby, Jaydev Unadkat, Zeeshan Ansari, Wiaan Mulder

Lucknow Super Giants: 1 Aiden Markram, 2 Nicholas Pooran, 3 Rishabh Pant (capt & wk), 4 Ayush Badoni, 5 David Miller, 6 Abdul Samad, 7 Shardul Thakur, 8 Ravi Bishnoi, 9 Avesh Khan, 10 Digvesh Rathi, 11 Prince Yadav

Impact Player options: Mitchell Marsh, Himmat Singh, Akash Singh, Shahbaz Ahmed, M Siddharth

It's a new pitch tonight, the red soil one. Fresh, hard and barren is how Deep Dasgupta described it in his pitch report. This pitch was used a couple of times last IPL, and in all four innings, the teams scored in excess of 200. Do I need to say anything more about how it's expected to play tonight?

The square boundaries are 69 and 67 metres. Down the ground is 79 metres. Given the low humidity and not much dip in the temperature expected, dew is unlikely to play a part.

Well, we have got the whole buffet for you. You know by now that Rishabh Pant is the new LSG captain. Despite his natural talent and hard work, he is yet to establish himself among the best T20 batters. In his first outing for LSG, he fetched a six-ball duck. There has been debate about his batting position as well, whether he should open or bat in the middle order.

His captaincy will also be under scrutiny. In the match against Delhi Capitals, he gave Shardul Thakur just two overs despite the allrounder picking up two wickets in the opening over of the chase.

You can read all that and more in our match preview.

That's the big question everyone's asking, and we have got Ambati Rayudu and Nick Knight to answer that. They also discuss whether LSG should bring in Shamar Joseph in place of Aiden Markram.

But what is LSG's plan? Here's Mitchell Marsh for you: "To score more runs than them."

Marsh feels 230 is the new par score and knows the SRH batters will come hard on them. But he backs his bowlers and LSG's "brand of cricket" to stand tall. By the way, Avesh Khan has joined the LSG squad after recovering from a knee injury.

Remember what happened the last time SRH met LSG?

LSG batted first and posted 165 for 4. It's not a big total in modern-day T20 cricket by any stretch of the imagination. But SRH showed how small it is. Abhishek Sharma and Travis Head mowed it down in just 9.4 overs.

Remember the animated chat between then LSG captain KL Rahul and the team owner Sanjeev Goenka? That happened after this game.