"KL Rahul & De Kock were told to retire after 18th over" - LSG Head coach Andy Flower

On Wednesday, the world saw a game with thrills, excitement, tension, and drama when Lucknow Super Giants locked horns with Kolkata Knight Riders at the DY Patil Stadium. Both teams gave a nail-bitter to the fans, which was decided on the very last ball of the match.

It all started with the carnage from the LSG openers that broke many records in the history of the IPL. Both openers added a record unbeaten partnership for the opening wickets of 210 runs. Quinton de Kock smashed the third highest IPL score of 140*, and KL Rahul played second fiddle to the partnership with an unbeaten 68-run knock.

 Later, LSG head coach Andy Flower revealed that they were thinking of retiring both batters after the 18th over. Both openers batted for the entire 20 overs and looked exhausted. During the post-match presentation, Flower said that at the end of the 18th over, we sent him the message of retiring.

He concluded, "If you guys are too tired hitting the ball hard, you can retire and we’ll send some of our big-hitters in.’ These boys, all of them, from 1 to 9 can hit the ball hard like that."

The wicket-keeper batsman registered his second IPL century and made the highest score by a wicket-keeper batsman in the IPL. He was on fire both against seamers and spinners and hit the ball to all parts of the ground. During his innings, he hit ten boundaries and ten maximums. 

However, Rahul and De Kock looked tired at the end of the innings, so the management was thinking of retiring them and sending other batters to go and hit the ball. But both did terrific jobs and even scored 46 runs in the last two overs. That helped LSG to reach 210, and this was the third highest partnership for any wicket in the IPL.

Chasing the target, KKR lost their first two wickets cheaply, but Nitish Rana (42) and Shreyas Iyer (50) brought them back into the game. However, after both got out, the LSG bowlers took control before Rinku Singh and Sunil Narine added 58 runs off just 19 balls to take KKR closer to the target.

However, in the end, KKR lost the wicket of Rinku at the wrong time and KKR fell short of the target by just two runs. With this loss, KKR has been elimniated from the competition and LSG has qualified for the playoffs.