In a heart-warming sight brothers Krunal and Hardik Pandya were seen exchanging jerseys following the Indian Premier League (IPL) clash between their respective sides Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) and Gujarat Titans (GT), which the latter won by seven runs. The video of the moment was shared by Hardik on social media with the caption: “Only love my brother”.
Both Hardik and Krunal had a good outing on Saturday. Anchoring Gujarat’s innings after his side lost star opener Shubman Gill for 0(2), Hardik played a resilient innings of 66 off 50 deliveries, before getting out to Marcus Stoinis in the final over. He didn’t roll his arms much and just delivered one over, which went for seven runs.
Krunal, on the other hand, produced a clinical show with the ball and scalped the prize wickets of Gill and Wriddhiman Saha, who scored 47 off 37 deliveries. The opponents could only squeeze 16 runs from his full quota. With the bat, Krunal walked in at number three and scored a run a ball 23, which featured two boundaries and a six.
Coming back to the match, batters of both the sides struggled as Gujarat eked a seven-run victory in a low-scoring thriller played in Lucknow. After opting to bat, Gujarat got off to a slow start and could only muster 135/6 in 20 overs.
Chasing 136, Lucknow got off to a superb start as the opening pair of Kyle Mayers and KL Rahul drove them to 55/1 in 6.3 overs, before Rashid Khan cleaned up the West Indies all-rounder for 24(19). Krunal then joined his skipper and added another 50-plus stand for the second wicket as Lucknow looked on course towards a mammoth win.
Noor Ahmad, another Afghanistan spinner, then broke the partnership with some assist from his wicketkeeper as Krunal was stumped for 23. Following the dismissal, the runs, especially the boundaries, started to dry helping Gujarat make a sensational comeback in the contest.
With 12 required in the final six deliveries with seven wickets in hand, Lucknow still appeared as clear favourites. However, Mohit Sharma’s phenomenal death bowling saved the day for GT as four wickets came in the final over and LSG could only manage 128/7 in the 136-run chase.
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