A fine all-round show by Bhuvneshwar Kumar of Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) took the spotlight in Qualifier 1 of the UP T20 League in Lucknow. Kumar bowled a fantastic spell, bagging two important wickets in 22 runs in his four-over spell against Meerut Mavericks. He got the two openers Akshay Dubey and Swastik Chikara to give his team a solid start upfront.
Bhuvneshwar Kumar Takes 2 Crucial Wickets
He started by sending back Akshay Dubey with a nicely pitched length delivery outside the off-stump. Without any sort of footwork, Dubey could play only an inside edge that crashed into the stumps. Changing the length, Kumar kept Swastik Chikara cramped for space as he got his second wicket. Chikara could not deal with the extra bounce and edged it to the wicketkeeper, who pouched a regulation catch. Early breakthroughs from Kumar proved instrumental in applying the squeeze on the Mavericks and providing Falcons with a solid start.
Watch- Bhuvneshwar Kumar’s Lethal Bowling
The Swing King takes two stunning wickets for the Falcons!
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Meerut Mavericks Defeated Lucknow Falcons
Despite excellent bowling by Bhuvneshwar Kumar, his efforts went down the drain as Meerut Mavericks won against Lucknow Falcons by nine runs. The Mavericks had gone into bat first, posting 153/4 in their 20 overs, courtesy good fifties from Madhav Kaushik and Rituraj Sharma.
The Mavericks bowlers then came up with a brilliant all-round performance, thereby bowling out the Lucknow Falcons for a total of 144 runs, thus falling short of the target by nine runs only. Vijay Kumar, Yash Garg, and Zeeshan Ansari all took two wickets each, while there was one wicket each from Vishal Chaudhary and Rituraj Sharma. Thus, the Mavericks reached a spot in the final on September 14 in Baramati against the winner of Qualifier 2.
But the Lucknow Falcons are still not out of the race for the final. In order to get into the final, they have to win the Qualifier 2 against the winner of the Eliminator match to be held between Kanpur Superstarz and Kashi Rudras tomorrow at the same venue.
