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Hyderabad (Telangana) [India], April 5 (ANI): Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) hitter and former West Indies star Nicholas Pooran seems to be facing some post-international retirement blues in T20 cricket, as the left-handed batter continued his decline in the shortest format of the game with another poor Indian Premier League (IPL) outing for Lucknow Super Giants (LSG).
After registering a sluggish eight runs in the campaign opener against Delhi Capitals before being outdone by a slower delivery from Lungi Ngidi, Pooran was run out by Ishan Kishan for just one run in four balls.
This year has seen Pooran register his worst-ever average in T20s during a calendar year. In nine innings, he has scored just 121 runs at an average of 13.44, with a strike rate of 117.47 and a best score of 33.
Since his retirement from international cricket last year, 'Nicky P' has not been as explosive as he once was, having scored 1,214 runs in 46 innings since his international retirement. While his average still holds a respectable figure of 32.81, and he has a century and seven fifties, his strike rate of 130.11 peels away a lot of intimidation from Pooran, who has a career strike rate of 147.82 in T20s.
His last fifty dates back to December last year against Gulf Giants for MI Emirates in the International T20 League (ILT20) in the UAE.
LSG opted to bowl first and managed to reduce SRH to 26/4, but a 116-run stand between Heinrich Klaasen (62 in 41 balls, with five fours and two sixes) and Nitish Kumar Reddy (56 in 33 balls, with three fours and five sixes) took the team to 156/9 in 20 overs.
Shami (2/9), Prince Yadav (2/34) and Avesh Khan (2/36) were among the pick of the bowlers, while Manimaran Siddharth (1/29) was economical.
In the chase, LSG lost Mitch Marsh early, but a 40-run stand between Aiden Markram (45 in 27 balls, with six fours and two sixes) and Pant brought them back to the game. Pant managed to stick around till the end with Mukul Choudhary (2*), finishing off the game with five wickets and a ball in hand.
Harsh Dubey (2/18) was the pick of the bowlers for SRH. Shami took home the 'Player of the Match' award for his sensational powerplay spell. (ANI)