I got pretty lucky Hazlewood on his very wide ball not being called wide

PTI, Apr 20, 2022, 10:49 AM IST

Image credit: BCCI/IPL/PTI

Navi Mumbai: Royal Challengers Bangalore pacer Josh Hazlewood said he “got pretty lucky” with his very wide delivery that was not called wide by the umpire, leading to Marcus Stoinis’ wicket in their IPL match against Lucknow Super Giants here on Tuesday.

Chasing 182, Stoinis got out in the second ball of the 19th over after he shuffled way too much outside off, an act prompted by the previous Hazlewood delivery that landed almost off the pitch.

With Stoinis going way across, the pacer went beyond the tramline and bowled it way outside off but the umpire, instead of calling it wide, deemed the delivery legal, much to the batter’s chagrin.

“I tried to turn around and get back to my mark as quick as I could. I got pretty lucky on that one so I might have to get him a beer after that,” Hazlewood said at the post-match presentation ceremony.

Hazlewood finished with excellent figures of 4/25 as RCB emerged comfortable winners by 18 runs.

RCB skipper Faf du Plessis played his part with a fine 96, lifting them to 181 for six after early hiccups.

The 37-year-old former South Africa skipper was tiring but he carried on until almost the end of their innings.
“I got a few 96, and a 97, so hopefully (a ton) is around the corner. We needed someone to stabilize the innings and then get going at the back end. Today, grateful that I could do it. Important that I am able to follow my blueprint of batting.

“If you bowled slow into the wicket to the big boundary, it never felt like you had enough power to clear that boundary. I was tired, but was still hoping that I could hit some at the end,” du Plessis said.

LSG captain KL Rahul said his team gave away too many runs in the powerplay despite getting early wickets.

“I think we started really well after getting two wickets in the first over, to give away 50 in the Powerplay, we should have done better. 180 on that pitch was 15 or 20 runs extra that we gave away,” Rahul said.

“The pitch was sticky. We got the early breakthroughs we were looking for but we couldn’t squeeze in the middle. We needed one big partnership – we saw what Faf did for RCB – I think we needed one batter in the top three or four to play a long innings and for other batters to play around with him but we couldn’t get that.”