"Bowlers Intimidated, Crowd Loud": On MS Dhoni Storm In Lucknow, KL Rahul's Huge Statement

Lucknow Super Giants skipper KL Rahul was chuffed to get most of his decisions right as he guided his team to a convincing eight-wicket win over defending champions Chennai Super Kings in an IPL game on Friday. Rahul had a good day in office as he was spot-on with his bowling changes and also took two catches and affected a stumping before returning to smash a match-winning 53-ball 82 to boot with. "Feels good at the end of the day, When you win, looks like you make all the decisions right," said Rahul, who was adjudged the Player of the Match, during the post-match presentation.

"Impossible to get all right. Depends on the kind of wicket we are playing on and the kind of batters there are. We spend time doing homework on tactics and strategy and we spoke about them not settling against one style of bowling."

LSG had kept things under control before Moeen Ali (30 off 20) and MS Dhoni (28 off 9) went on a six-hitting spree to take CSK to a fighting 176 for six.

"Halfway stage, I would have been happy with 160. Felt the wicket was slow, a bit of grip but not too much. 160-165 would have been ideal.

"But MSD walks in and the bowlers feel intimidated. He walks in and bowlers were under pressure, the crowd was really loud, he has done it in the past."

Chasing 177, Rahul (82) and De Kock (54) batted with authority during their match-winning alliance of 134, the highest partnership for any wicket at the Ekana Stadium, as LSG scored 180 for 2 in 19 overs.

"Felt that if we bat well, we could chase it down. I have been trying to assess the situation and today it came off. With Chennai's spinners, they tried to put brakes on us," he said.

"We tried to get to a good start. Tried to take them down, luckily it came off. When your