Little-known Narine spins his way into hearts
When KKR signed up Sunil Narine for USD 700,000 at the IPL Player Auction 2012, many wondered why the franchise had splurged on an unknown commodity. Going by his performance in IPL 2012, a more fitting question would be – was he a steal at that price?
Let the numbers tell the story; he picked up 24 wickets in 15 matches, finished with an economy rate of 5.47, and had a strike-rate of a wicket every 15 deliveries. While those stats are staggering by themselves, what they don’t reveal is the mastery he had over the batsmen. In the batsman-friendly T20 format, here was an unconventional bowler from the West Indies, the breeding ground of legendary quicks, playing in foreign territory, yet holding his own against some of the best in the business.
An unusual bowling action and a wide variety of deliveries in his repertoire meant batsmen struggled to pick him right through the tournament. One got to see deliveries coming into the batsmen, holding their line and going straight on, and some that squeaked away from the batsmen too – what made picking these deliveries difficult was that the changes in Narine’s bowling action were almost imperceptible.
The Trinidadian came into the tournament as a mystery bowler and despite bowling close to 60 overs in the competition, he heads back home with the mystery element intact. It was a pity he couldn’t finish the tournament on a high; he turned 24 on the eve of the final, and a wicket in the final would have given him the Purple Cap. But that was not to be; he had his poorest day in the competition – going wicketless and conceding 37 runs in his four-over spell – and had to be content with being the second-most successful bowler in the season. However, there was the winners’ medal that made up for not getting the Purple Cap – and that’s a medal that’s sure to find pride of place in this collection of laurels
