Surely that was a one-off. Maybe he was trying to calm himself. Nope. His second attempt, off just his third ball, was even more audacious. He cleared his front leg, exposing all three stumps, and bludgeoned a six down the ground off Avesh.

Fifth ball, there was even more drama. Avesh had steam coming off, and thought he’d done enough by banging in a short ball that Suryavanshi top edged. Prince Yadav, running back from midwicket, ended up dropping it and Ravi Bishnoi parried the ball to the boundary.

Rishabh Pant quickly brought on his trump card, hoping the youngster would swing at one blindly. Suryavanshi showed smarts in playing him out. But before long, he climbed into Rathi, muscling him for a six over deep midwicket, and then hitting Bishnoi straight down the ground.

But on 34, Suryavanshi was deceived in flight by Aiden Markram,  who was only perhaps operating because the accomplished bowlers had been taken to the cleaners by Suryavanshi and Yashasvi Jaiswal, who put on 85 off just 8.3 overs. He got one to turn sharply to beat a lunging Suryavanshi. His back foot was in the air, and Pant has him stumped.

The Suryavanshi show was over, but not before he had had millions excited for more.

Jaiswal soon raised a half-century off just 31 balls – his fourth half-century in five innings – and seemed set to see the chase. His picking of lengths against spin was impeccable, until one grave mistake gave LSG an opening they burst through.

Bowlers may have heroically helped seal victory, but Abdul Samad’s contribution – an unbeaten 10-ball 30 – was as important.

He was held back on the face of a batting collapse – LSG were 54 for 3 when Pant fell cheaply – for him to be able to maximise damage in the end overs along with David Miller. This meant LSG summoned Ayush Badoni as their Impact Player to stabilise the innings, replacing Mitchell Marsh.

The consequence of this move was that they couldn’t now bring in Mayank Yadav, listed as one of the Impact Subs, even if they had him in their plans.

Badoni repaid the faith, scoring 50 in 34, to repair the innings with Markram, who top-scored with 66. But it was truly Samad’s pyrotechnics in the end that lifted a floundering innings.

Holding his shape and picking deliveries off Sandeep Sharma’s hand, Samad picked his arc between deep squares and deep midwicket to pummel four sixes in a 27-run final over that gave LSG momentum.

In terms of overall contribution, this was worth its weight in gold, one that combined with Avesh’s to strengthen LSG’s position in the top four – all of whom now have 10 points.

Brief scores:
Lucknow Super Giants 180 for 5 in 20 overs (Aiden Markram 66, Nicholas Pooran 11, Ayush Badoni 50, Abdul Samad 30*; Jofra Archer 1-32, Sandeep Sharma 1-55, Thushar Deshpande 1-26, Wanidu Hasaranga 2-31) beat  Rajasthan Royals 178 for 5 in 20 overs (Yashaswi Jaiswal 74, Vaibhav Suryanathi 34, Riyan Parag 39, Shimron Hetmyer 12; Shardul Thakur 1-34,  Avesh Khan  3-37,Aiden Markram 1-18)   by two runs

[Cricinfo]