During the 44th match of the 11th season of the Indian Premier League (IPL) between Kings XI Punjab (KXIP) and Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) at Indore, Kolkata Knight Riders’ Sunil Narine raced his way to his third IPL half-century.
Ravichandran Ashwin, captain of Kings XI Punjab, had won the toss and chose to field. Kings XI Punjab included Mayank Agarwal, Aaron Finch and Barinder Sran into their playing eleven in place of Akshdeep Nath, Manoj Tiwary and Marcus Stoinis. On the other hand, Kolkata Knight Riders brought in Shubman Gill and handed an IPL debut to Javon Searles. Rinku Singh and Tom Curran faced the axe.
Opening the batting with Chris Lynn, Narine did not score a boundary for the first three overs. After getting his eye in, he was unstoppable for the opposition bowlers. Despite losing the wicket of Lynn, Sunil carried on with the same flair.
Kolkata Knight Riders had scored 59-1 in the powerplay, out of which Narine had contributed 31* (18). The best part about this innings of his was that he attacked the spinners with full disdain. Having a reputation of struggling against the spinners, Narine proved his critics wrong today.
On the third delivery of the ninth over, with a single to long-on off Axar Patel, Narine brought up his third IPL half-century (off 26 balls). At the halfway mark, the Knight Riders raced to 106-1. By then, Narine had scored 55* (29). In the following over, Narine scored two sixes and a four against Sran, leaving the bowler absolutely clueless.
Narine eventually got out in the next over after Tye induced the outside edge off his bat which was easily taken behind the wickets by Lokesh Rahul. He ended up scoring 75 (36) with the help of nine fours and four sixes. Watch the highlights of his innings:
https://twitter.com/videos_shots/status/995277775782035456
Watch how the followers on Twitter reacted on Narine’s flamboyant innings:
https://twitter.com/rameshsrivats/status/995263630408007681
https://twitter.com/WeirdlyProbable/status/995262210552221696
https://twitter.com/FarziCricketer/status/995264924568862720
#Narine has hit a half-century in half the number of balls…wonderful batting #KXIPvKKR #IPL2018 @SunilPNarine74
— Googly Devi (@googlydevi) May 12, 2018
Sunil Narine. How good is this guy!
Such a game changer with the ball, season after season.👏👏👏🙏#KKRvsCSK— Sanjay Manjrekar (@sanjaymanjrekar) May 3, 2018
https://twitter.com/iNationalSRKian/status/995264483416158208
Narine has given them a perfect platform. If KKR loses today, they themselves have to be blamed.
— Sudhir Kekre (@sudhirkekre) May 12, 2018
https://twitter.com/ThatCricketBuff/status/995259443469107205
https://twitter.com/cricketingview/status/995259168650121216
Not a bad day to have #Narine as Powerplayer
— AKSHAY (@akshay14793) May 12, 2018
Disappointed at Narine not having made a century! But that was one hell of an innings! Thank you, Narine!👏🏻👏🏻#KXIPvKKR #IPL2018 #KKRHaiTaiyaar #KXIP
— . (@thelastremnant_) May 12, 2018
Sunil narine.. U r so awesome man.. Raped ashwin left and right.. Come on give him a half century.. 🙂 🙂 kxip is becoming a comedy team of the tournament.. 🙂
— Shreenidhi P (@nid_rockz) May 12, 2018
Played Narine!
— Nikhil 🏏 (@CricCrazyNIKS) May 12, 2018
First KXIP batsmen were not able to chase decent targets and now bowlers got horribly smashed by Narine #KXIPvKKR
— Sejal 🏏🏆🇮🇳 (@sejal_mokal) May 12, 2018
