Lucknow Super Giants’ (LSG) final game win over Mumbai Indians wasn’t enough to secure a playoff spot. Falling short due to their net run rate despite matching fourth-placed Chennai Super Kings’ 14 points. Reflecting on the season, captain KL Rahul expressed disappointment over the team’s inconsistency and the impact of injuries and player absences.
“At the beginning of the season, I really felt that we had a strong team and had most bases covered,” Rahul said after the game. “[We had] a couple of injuries obviously, which happens every season to every team, but those injuries and the guys that went away really dented us a little bit, and we didn’t play well enough collectively. When the bowlers had a good game, the batters wouldn’t have a good game. We just didn’t come together as much as we would have wanted to.”
LSG head coach Justin Langer echoed Rahul’s sentiments, commenting on the team’s attempts to experiment in their last game. One such experiment involved opening with Devdutt Padikkal instead of Quinton de Kock. A move that backfired when Padikkal was dismissed for a golden duck. Despite early setbacks. Nicholas Pooran’s explosive 29-ball 75 and Rahul’s own acceleration to 55 off 41-balls helped LSG post competitive total of 214.
LSG, initially known for their strength in defending totals, saw their bowling falter in the latter half of the season due to injuries to key bowlers like Mohsin Khan and Mayank Yadav. Their struggle to defend totals highlighted this inconsistency, though they managed to hold off Mumbai Indians with disciplined bowling and solid fielding, notably taking all five chances that came their way.
Langer pinpointed fielding as a significant issue throughout the season. “I think dropped catches cost us,” he stated. “If you go back to the Delhi game at home, we dropped [Jake] Fraser-McGurk on 17 off Marcus Stoinis. And I think he hit 26 runs off the next over and it really kickstarted his whole season. I saw a stat today that we’ve dropped a lot of catches. We’ve probably got the best fielding coach in the world [Jonty Rhodes] and we dropped some catches. And often it’s [something] as simple as that to [decide] the outcome of the season.”
Despite the setbacks, Langer acknowledged the team’s strong finish against Mumbai, crediting solid performances in both batting and fielding. “Today was a really good performance,” Rahul said. “This is kind of game we wanted to play more where batters are scoring, and bowlers are doing their job. Unfortunately, we didn’t do that, so we find ourselves here.”
As LSG looks towards the next season, the focus will be on building a more consistent team performance and addressing the issues that hindered their playoff ambitions this time around.
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