Narine 'suprised' by his own achievements

Photo: BCCI

Bengaluru: Sunil Narine had gone through a lot in the last couple of years. A suspected bowling action meant he had to completely rehash his way of bowling, which limited his effectiveness to a certain extent, was also dropped from the West Indies side and did not particularly have a great season coming in to IPL. But all this did not stop the one time mystery spinner. He found a way to shun his critics. On Sunday though, Narine himself admitted that keeping everything else aside, taking the IPL by storm with the bat was the last thing on his mind.

"Yes, I'm very surprised. Definitely wasn't expecting something like this," Narine, who was adjudged Man of the Match for his all-round show, said post-match at the presentation ceremony.

Until Sunday, very few were taking Narine the batsman seriously even though the Kolkata Knight Riders think tank was considering him as their main opening batsman. So much so that captain captain Gautam Gambhir decided to leave his favoured position for him to go and express. The ease with which Narine rewrote the record books of IPL against Kings XI Punjab was for everyone to see.

Narine's 17-ball 54 was complemented by 2 for 29 in his four overs to restrict RCB, batting first, to 158/6. KKR chased down the target of 159 easily having 29 balls to spare. Chris Lynn was Narine's foil, the fit-again Australian dasher scoring a 22-ball 50.

The pair added 105 runs for the first wicket to take the game away from Virat Kohli's boys.

"Lynny just said, keep your eyes on the ball, maintain your focus and swing through the line. I try to keep it simple and back my ability," Narine said.

Narine has been opening the batting since Lynn injured his shoulder in a match against Mumbai Indians.

On taking the important wicket of AB de Villiers, Narine said: "That wicket was key (AB de Villiers) and pulled them back a bit so I'm happy. It was a total team effort. Bowlers stuck to their plans. Umesh (Yadav)'s was a key performance too."