KL Rahul (76) dug deep with Deepak Hooda (50) as Lucknow Super Giants managed a competitive 196/5 against Rajasthan Royals in their Indian Premier League clash on Saturday.
Rahul and Hooda gave LSG a solid footing with a 62-ball 115-run stand for the third wicket after early blows, but the failure of others meant the hosts could not capitalise on the hard work by the two.
Rahul's 48-ball 76 with eight fours and two sixes was his fourth fifty of the season while Hooda banished his poor string of scores to make his first big score this IPL.
Trent Boult was unfazed after being hit for two fours on the trot by Quinton de Kock, knocking down the South African's off-stump on the third ball of the game.
Sandeep Sharma (2/31) left last match's centurion Marcus Stoinis in awe with a peach, getting the ball to nip back in and sneaking in between the Australian's bat and pads to hit the middle stump.
A four-ball duck was what Stoinis could follow up with after his magnificent century against Chennai Super Kings.
A little slow to pick at the start, Rahul and Hooda did well to make up the lost ground.
Rahul, however, was lucky when he shuffled across on his right to expose all three stumps and went on his knees to attempt a slog sweep off Sandeep in the sixth over.
Sandeep and RR skipper Samson could only look on in disbelief after the ball missed the batter and the off-stump by just a few centimetres.
LSG's ascend began in the eighth over when Rahul smacked Avesh Khan for 21 runs including two sixes.
Hooda welcomed back Boult with an 18-run 11th over including two fours, but the right-hander perished immediately after completing his fifty.
Ashwin applied the breaks on LSG's progress and end his drought of wickets in this IPL, picking up only his second wicket to have Hooda caught at wide long on by Rovman Powell.
The skewed boundary lengths at Ekana came into play when Sandeep surprised Nicholas Pooran (11) with a short ball which climbed on the batter, and the top edge flew straight into the hands of a waiting Boult at the deep backward square leg.
Rahul also fell in a similar fashion when Avesh dug one short and wide for the LSG skipper to free up his arms but the ball did not travel the distance and Boult took a low catch to end the part-time India skipper's resistance.