Sunil Narine was at the prime of his powers in the eliminator against Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB). In the first innings, Narine turned out to be the kryptonite to RCB’s batting lineup and in the second innings his short burst of big hits practically took the game away from Virat Kohli’s men.
After an all-round performance, Narine was content with his ‘player of the match’ performance as he said in the post-match press presentation, “Any good performance in a match-winning game is always good. Today was my day and made the best use of it. All wickets I enjoy. I'm not that close to what I was before but I'm getting there. Hard work is paying off. Always get some heartbeats before the game. But cool and calm during the game. Prefer to have the ball in hand which you can control.”
The Caribbean mystery spinner rushed through RCB’s batting order taking the wickets of skipper Virat Kohli, in-form uncapped player Srikar Bharat and overseas big-hitters Glenn Maxwell, AB de Villiers. He played the major role of keeping RCB’s target well-within reach.
In the second innings, high on confidence Narine was sent up the order to produce a match-winning cameo. The left-handed batter targetted RCB’s weak link Daniel Christian and tonked him for three sixes in a single over to considerably bring the required run rate below five runs per over which was on the rise when he came to bat.
Narine finished the match with four wickets for 21 runs with the ball and a breathtaking 15-ball 26 cameo.
The 33-year-old has taken 14 wickets in the season so far from 12 games. The most important part of his bowling is that he has maintained an economy rate just below six and a half runs per over.
