Lucknow Super Giants head coach Justin Langer defended the decision to send out-of-form Nicholas Pooran to take on star spinner Sunil Narine of the Kolkata Knight Riders in the Super Over of their IPL match, stating that the team management believed the explosive West Indies batter was the best choice despite his poor performance.
LSG finished at 1/2 in the Super Over as Pooran, who has struggled for runs this IPL season with 22 being his highest, was out first ball bowled by Narine. KKR won the game with just one ball.
“Good question. We knew that Sunil Narine had bowled it, and if you look at Nicky’s (Nicholas Pooran) record, he’s seen Sunil Narine more than anyone in world cricket. So we felt that he was still the best option,” PTI quoted Langer as saying at the post-match press conference.
“I know he hasn’t hit his form yet, and Nicky will be the first to admit that, but we thought if anyone can handle a Super Over, it’s Nicky Pooran. You back your best players. He has struggled, but if you look at all the numbers, no one plays Narine, the world-class off-spinner, better than Nicky. It didn’t come off, unfortunately,” he added.
There was some history as well. Narine pitched the first Super Over in T20 cricket history in the Caribbean Premier League (CPL) in 2014, and Pooran was one of the batters who was dismissed without scoring.
“There’s probably no greater T20 player (than Pooran) currently in the world over the last few years. It just goes to show he’s human, and you can’t fake confidence. We all try to. You can look confident, but confidence comes from getting your processes right,” Langer said.
Pooran’s selection to bat in the Super Over was also backed by LSG captain Rishabh Pant.
“We had a discussion as a group and the name (that) came up was (of) Nicholas Pooran’s (for Super Over). He might not go through the best form of his life, but at the same time, you will trust your player in a hard situation like this,” Pant said at the post-match presentation.
Langer acknowledged that his team was unable to adapt to the black-soil wicket on Sunday.
“It’s frustrating. I said after the last game I thought the wicket was very good on the red soil and it was fast and bouncy. It’s really exciting for cricket and we didn’t adapt today to the black soil which was slower and lower and spun a little bit. So, it’s frustrating. We’re not adapting to the conditions as well as we should be.”
Mohsin Khan, who took 5/23 in a lost cause, had nothing but praise from the former Australia batsman.
“I said earlier I thought he (Mohsin) and Prince will soon play cricket for India. And the thing about Mohsin Khan is, he is an incredible athlete.
“He’s done some great work with Bharat Arun. He spent – what a lot of people don’t know – a few months at Bharat’s academy in Chennai leading up to this … he worked hard and he’s getting fit.
“That’s why he was so disappointed when he hurt his quad after the first game because we can see how valuable he is.
“We haven’t had him much for the last two seasons and it’s a great thrill for us to have him in the team and it wouldn’t surprise me if it’s a great thrill for India to have him in their team in the not-too-distant future,” he said.
Langer bemoaned his team’s loss of 43 runs in the final two overs on a “pretty low, tougher batting wicket.”
“They’ve got two world-class spinners obviously, Varun (Chakaravarthy) and Sunil (Narine). So, they would have felt like they’re in the game, and for a lot of that time we felt like we’re still in the game and just fell behind and got a bit exciting in the end but not exciting enough”.
