Soon after watching a stunning six-hitting display from Mukul Choudhary, which sealed a thrilling last-ball finish for Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) against Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), LSG head coach Justin Langer said that the match-winning knock will be a “massive moment” in the batter’s life and career.

“The thing about him is there’s very few players like the Tim Davids, the Andre Russells – and I’m not even going to say it, I’m not even going to compare it – but that’s how he’s lived his career,” Langer told the host broadcast after the game. “And he’s got used to finishing off games like that, so he has to think about it, and he’s only 22 (21) years old.”

LSG were on the brink of defeat after they had been reduced to 128 for 7 in their chase of 182. Despite a few big blows from Choudhary, KKR still dominated the contest and LSG needed 43 off the last three overs. What followed was a spectacular assault, with Choudhary hitting a stunning six over deep cover off Kartik Tyagi, followed by another six in the over and then a sequence of 6, dot, 4 and 6 off Cameron Green in the penultimate over to bring it down to a more gettable 14 from six. Choudhary then belted two more sixes in the last over before the winning runs came in the form of a bye.

“He’s so young, and he’s got that look in his eyes, he’s hungry,” Langer said. “You know when you first come in, you try so hard, and [this victory will] just be a massive moment in his life and his career… What I love about him, there’s areas that we saw straight away. I mean he can do that – what we’re seeing on the screen now – we’ve seen all that side of it. But he’s also gone away, he’s worked on the short ball. We’ve been doing drills every day with him, and then it came out in practice today, so he’s got a very curious mind, he wants to get better, and like I say, after you work hard at something and you take it out to the middle… We’ve seen plenty of that for the last four weeks or so since he’s been with us.”

When asked about what was going through his mind when a defeat loomed before the final few overs saw a twist, Langer said: “I was probably thinking about what I was going to say to our players, I thought we bowled brilliantly on this wicket, I thought we were outstanding, I actually jotted that down, regardless of whether we win or lose, our bowling was excellent and our fielding was elite as well, so I was really pleased with that.”

After a loss in their opening match, LSG have now won back-to-back games and sit close to the top four spot early in the group stage. “If you win the close ones, you get that little bit of belief, don’t you? And it doesn’t matter whether you do it with the ball, whether you’re able to pull back a team or have a tight win like that, but those tight wins, it’s just like that magic tonic, isn’t it?”

LSG now play their next game against Gujarat Titans at home, on April 12.