The Caribbean T20 superstar Sunil Narine made his name in the game with his mystery spin when he bamboozled some of the top players in the world while playing for Trinidad and Tobago in the Champions League T20 tournament more than a decade ago.
But, a few years later, it was his batting as well which caught many opposition teams by surprise. Sunil Narine, recently in an exclusive interview for cricket monthly, recalled the time when his KKR captain Gautam Gambhir had asked him to open the batting for the first time in IPL.
Narine had opened the batting in a couple of games for Melbourne Renegades before that, but not in a permanent role. But, Gambhir told him to open the innings in a permanent role with Chris Lynn and bat very aggressively without the fear of getting out at all.
Sunil Narine revealed that Gambhir’s decision of sending him to open the innings all of a sudden, while demoting himself to no. 3, was based on the fact that since he had not opened the batting a lot anywhere in the world apart from a couple of games for the Renegades, none of the IPL teams would have a proper plan against him.
Gambhir’s move worked initially because Sunil Narine devastated many bowling attacks around the park in his first few seasons of opening in the IPL.
Sunil Narine is not KKR’s regular opener anymore
Narine doesn’t open the batting for KKR on a regular basis anymore, because now most of the bowlers around the world know that he is susceptible against short bowling and they bowl with a clear plan whenever he comes out to bat, but it wasn’t the case when he was first used as an opener.
Many teams actually tried to use spin against Narine initially, which he is very good against, and he took spinners to the cleaners a number of times in the powerplay. The left hander did the same to the length balls against the medium pacers as well, but eventually his weakness against quick, short pitched bowling was found out.
