“Sunil Narine is a magician, his name should be Magician Narine.” – Kapil Dev
Kapil Dev could’ve put it in a better way, but “magician” is surely the right word for Sunil Narine. Even after 3 years, his bowling still remains a mystery and no batsman in the world has been able to get hold of his mystery spin. In a format, where an economy of 7.00 is said to be good, Narine ends up mostly with an economy of less than 4.00. He bowls maiden overs for fun and stays very calm in the crunch situations. It’s said that captains shouldn’t use spinners in the death overs in T20 cricket, but Sunil Narine is an exception. In fact, he’s the best death bowler in T20, in the world at the moment.
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In the seventh match of the ongoing CLT20 tournament, that was played between Lahore Lions (LL) and Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), Narine bowled 4 overs and gave only 9 runs, took 3 wickets, and bowled a maiden over, too.
Lahore Lions’ batsmen had no idea which way Narine’s ball was spinning. Narine’s first over to Nasir Jamshed was an absolute treat to watch, as he played around with Nasir’s bat by spinning the ball both ways. Nasir Jamshed was absolutely clueless, and so were other Lahore Lions batsmen.
A bit of credit also goes to Kolkata Knight Riders’ captain Gautam Gambhir, who rotated Narine really well and used him very cleverly against the domestic players in the Lions’ line-up, who hadn’t faced him before.
In a post match interview, Lahore Lions’ opener Ahmen Shehzad praised Gambhir’s captaincy and his tactic of using Narine effectively against the domestic players. Shehzad also praised Narine saying, it’s difficult to play Narine when you face him for the first time.
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Since his inclusion, Narine has been Kolkata Knight Riders’ trump card, and his 4 overs are more often than not the most crucial 4 overs of the match.
Undoubtedly, Sunil Narine is the best T20 bowler in the world.
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by The Cricket Analyst
