The veteran Caribbean all-rounder went berserk at Eden Gardens, Kolkata against Rajasthan Royals. Sunil Narine scored his maiden T20 century in his 504th T20 appearance. Narine who announced his retirement from international cricket in November 2023 dropped a hint on taking a U-turn ahead of T20 World Cup 2024 in the USA and West Indies.
After his maiden IPL century, Narine was asked whether he would take his “I'll be watching it from home, Badree" statement back which he made after the previous match.
“It is what it is, we'll have to see what the future holds,” Narine replied to the broadcaster.
Gambhir’s backing the reason behind Narine 2.0
Narine revealed it was his former Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) captain and current mentor Gautam Gambhir who motivated him to open the innings once again.
“I would have taken it as a joke because I haven't opened in such a long time or did much with the bat in the years past. With GG (Gambhir) coming back, he gave me the confidence and his assurance that I'll open the batting,” the 335-year-old said.
After propelling KKR to 223/6 against the table-toppers, he revealed his mindset during the 109-run knock.
“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,” he added.
Narine enters record books
Narine became only the third all-rounder in Indian Premier League (IPL) history with a century and a hat-trick to his name. The other two players are Rohit Sharma and Shane Watson.
He is the third KKR batter to score a century in IPL. The other two are Brendon McCullum and Venkatesh Iyer. He is the fourth batter in the ongoing season to score a century as well. The three batters are Virat Kohli, Rohit and Travis Head.
Currently, he is the leading run-scorer for KKR in IPL 2024. With 276 runs from six games, he is the third in contention of orange cap race.
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