Ayush Badoni failed to deliver for the Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) against Chennai Super Kings (CSK) at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai on Monday, April 3.
Chasing 218, the right-hander scored 23 off 18 balls at an underwhelming strike rate of 127.78. He was then caught by MS Dhoni off Tushar Deshpande‘s bowling in the last over.
Badoni, who came in when LSG were 130/5 in 13.2 overs, failed to hit a single boundary during his innings. This came as a surprise after he scored 18 off just seven balls against Delhi Capitals in his previous game. LSG won the game by 50 runs on Saturday, April 1.
Fans questioned Ayush Badoni’s intent with the bat in the death overs against CSK. That came after the batter decided to take singles and doubles despite increasing the required run rate.
One tweeted:
“Now don’t tell me IPL is not fixed. There is no explanation for that Badoni innings.”
Here are some of the other Twitter reactions:
Not Ayush Badoni, KL Rahul explains why LSG lost to CSK by 12 runs
LSG captain KL Rahul felt that his team didn’t make the most of the small moments, which cost them the game against CSK on Monday.
Speaking on the post-match show, he said:
“We didn’t win because we didn’t capitalize the small moments. We had a good start but couldn’t press on. Not often we’ll find 4-5 guys caught on the boundary ropes. They needed to go over and will go over the next time. We’ll take that in T20 cricket, today the game didn’t go our way, but this is the way we want to keep playing.”
The 30-year-old also questioned the bowling unit for leaking 79 runs in the powerplay overs. He said:
“When you have quality batters in the opposition, they make you pay. Something for us to learn, but the way Rutu and Conway played was brilliant. It does take time to learn what lengths to bowl on a surface, but to go for 70-odd in six overs isn’t ideal.”
LSG will now look to return to winning ways in their next game against SunRisers Hyderabad (SRH) on Friday, April 7.
