Kolkata Knight Riders’ opening batter, Sunil Narine has revived his career with the bat in the ongoing season of the Indian Premier League (IPL) and he delivered once again against the Rajasthan Royals as he raised his maiden IPL century off just 49 deliveries.
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Speaking after the first innings, Narine was asked on if he ever thought he could be in the orange cap race. Following his knock he is now third in the run-scoring charts for the season with 361 runs at an average of 72.2 and a strike-rate of 147.35.
Narine commented,” I would have taken it as a joke because I haven’t opened in such a long time or done much with the bat in the past”. He has not had the best of times with the bat in the previous seasons, not going past the 100-run tally in the previous three seasons.
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He credited his former skipper and now mentor of the franchise, Gautam Gambhir for the backing he has received since his return to the side which then resulted in a revival of his batting aspect. He mentioned,” With GG (Gambhir) coming back, he gave me the confidence and his assurance that I’ll open the batting”.
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As far as his role with the bat is concerned it is simple. To provide the side with a good start with the bat and keep the scoreboard ticking. He highlighted this by saying,” The job is just to go out there and try to give a good start, whatever the situation is, still keep going because if you try to face dot balls in the powerplay, it could hurt you in the backend. So just go there and try to give your team a good start”.
With regards to the second innings, Narine suggested that early wickets would be key in helping restrict the Royals and take home the win.
“We have an understanding about it, it’s not going to be easy (bowling here), we have to make use of the powerplay, pick up early wickets and make sure that we control in the middle and try to restrict them,” he commented.
Narine was asked about his stance on being unavailable for the West Indies in their upcoming T20 World Cup campaign. He had earlier mentioned in a conversation with the former WI international, Samuel Badree where he said, ” I’ll be watching it from home”.
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Following this knock, however, without giving too much away, Narine said,” It is what it is, we’ll have to see what the future holds”.
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