While Lucknow Super Giants claimed a dominant win against the dangerous hosts SunRisers Hyderabad in the seventh match of the IPL 2025, LSG pacer Shardul Thakur had the key role, as the right-arm pacer produced his best bowling figures in his IPL career. 

From being unsold to becoming an important pacer in the injury-loaded LSG pace bowling line-up, Shardul Thakur is now playing a very important role for his new IPL team, LSG. After performing strongly in their IPL 2025 opener against Delhi Capitals, Shardul again produced a powerful bowling performance in their second game against the dangerous hosts SRH.

While SRH scored 286/6 at home in their first IPL 2025 match (vs Rajasthan Royals), which was the second-highest IPL total, LSG restricted SRH to 190/9 in 20 overs. LSG pacer Shardul had the bowling figures of 4-0-34-4. In his second over of his first spell of the match, Shardul took two consecutive wickets of SRH opener Abhishek Sharma (6) and last match centurion Ishan Kishan (0). After Shardul provided a strong start, the other LSG bowlers brought strong support, as the home batters were never out of early pressure. Later, in the slog overs, Shardul dismissed Abhinav Manohar (2) and Mohammed Shami (1) cheaply to record the second fifer in his IPL career. 

See Also: IPL 2025: Shardul Thakur records his best bowling figures in IPL career

Why not bowlers go hard at them? Shardul Thakur

As LSG achieved success in the match by earning two points, Shardul won the Player of the Match award for his outstanding bowling performance, as the right-arm pacer now holds the Purple Cap. During the presentation ceremony, he was asked, "Shardul, when you are specially planning and bowling against a team like this, SRH, with so many destructive batters, what's the game plan?"

Shardul replied, "I think they are coming hard at bowlers, and why not bowlers go hard at them? So, the talk was around what the plan should be, and ok we collectively said, 'Let's go hard at them, let's take our chances.' If we get early wickets, then we are in the game because we have been scoring heavily on this ground on flat pitches, and probably we had to take our chances."

Here's the video pic.twitter.com/gaXOjleXj0

— Radha (@Rkc1511165) March 27, 2025

LSG won by five wickets with 23 balls remaining

LSG comfortably chased the 191-run target in 16.1 overs after losing five wickets, where Nicholas Pooran (70 off 26 balls; six fours and six sixes) and the opener Mitchell Marsh (52 off 31 balls; seven fours and two sixes) had powerful batting performances.