VISAKHA­P­AT­NAM – Nicholas Pooran scored a scin­til­lat­ing half cen­tu­ry but his Luc­know Su­per Gi­ants still went down by one wick­et to the Del­hi Cap­i­tals in a thrilling con­test when the In­di­an Pre­mier League (IPL) con­tin­ued in In­dia on Mon­day.

Af­ter be­ing sent in to bat, Pooran blud­geoned 75 off just 30 balls with sev­en six­es and six fours, while Mitchell Marsh blast­ed 72 from 36 balls, to pro­pel the Su­per Gi­ants to 209 for eight from their 20 overs.

The pair added 87 runs in sev­en overs for the sec­ond wick­et to get their side up to a com­pet­i­tive to­tal.

Pac­er Mitchell Starc took 3-42 from his four overs and Kuldeep Ya­dav snared 2-20 for the Cap­i­tals.

The con­test seemed to be all but over af­ter the Cap­i­tals slumped to sev­en for three and then 65 for five, but Ashutosh Shar­ma and Vipraj Nigam played sen­sa­tion­al knocks and they fin­ished on 211 for nine off 19.3 overs.

Play­er-of-the-Match Shar­ma struck an un­beat­en 66 from 31 balls with five fours and five six­es, while Nigam slammed 39 off 15 de­liv­er­ies, in­clu­sive of five fours and two six­es, dur­ing a 55-run part­ner­ship for the sev­enth wick­et that turned the match in their favour.

Need­ing six runs off the last over, Shar­ma hoist­ed left-arm spin­ner Shah­baz Ahmed’s third de­liv­ery straight down the ground to end the con­test and spark wild cel­e­bra­tions among his team­mates.

Shardul Thakkur, Man­i­maran Sid­dharth, Digvesh Rathi and Ravi Bish­noi all took two wick­ets for the Su­per Gi­ants.

CMC