4/8/24, 11:50 AM IPL 2024 - How Lucknow Super Giants mastered the art of defending totals | ESPNcricinfo

The nature of bowlers LSG have makes them particularly good through the middle overs, as the above
graphic suggests (this is across all matches, whether batting or bowling first). Controlling this phase is
often vital while defending totals, as LSG showed on Sunday too. Having got to 54 for 1 at the end of
their powerplay in their chase of 164, Titans collapsed through the middle overs on a tricky pitch,
against the constricting bowling of Krunal, Bishnoi and Thakur.

Be lucky

It's important to remember, of course, that four of LSG's 15 bat-first wins have been achieved with a
margin of six runs or fewer - one hit, in other words, could have changed the result - and two others by
margins of 12 and 10 runs.

LSG's win-loss ratio of 7.5, then, is slightly deceptive, and a reversion to the mean can't be too far
away. But there's no denying their excellence at defending totals, and the method behind it.

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