Lucknow Super Giants captain Rishabh Pant showered praise on Nicholas Pooran after they secured a five-wicket win against Sunrisers Hyderabad at the Rajiv Gandhi International Cricket Stadium, Hyderabad on Thursday.
Chasing 191 runs for the win, LSG lost the early wicket of Aiden Markram. However, Pooran was able to hit the ground running and made most of the Powerplay overs along with Mitchell Marsh. The left-hander completed the fastest fifty of IPL 2025, reaching the milestone off just 18 balls.
The southpaw smashed six fours and as many sixes in his match-winning knock of 70 runs off just 26 balls. The West Indies batter scored his runs at a blistering strike rate of 269.23 and put the game to bed with his whirlwind innings. Pant said they want to give all the freedom to Pooran to express himself in the middle.
Rishabh Pant said after the win, “I think we just want to give freedom to him. You got to give someone the charge when he is batting well and he has batted brilliantly for us. The group is coming up nicely, we haven’t played our best so far but happy to get a win.”
Pant added the team is focused on the process irrespective of the results and they want to control the controllables. He also showered praise on rookie pacer Prince Yadav and Shardul Thakur. While Yadav returned with impressive figures of 1-29 in his four overs, Thakur bagged four wickets in the game.
He concluded, “Big relief but as a team we talk about the process. It’s not about getting too high when you win and not about getting too low when you lose. As a team, we can’t focus on uncontrollables, my mentor said focus on controllables and that is what I did. Good to see the way Prince bowled and also Thakur was really good.”
Lucknow Super Giants will next take on Punjab Kings at the Bharat Ratna Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Cricket Stadium, Lucknow on Tuesday.
