By returning to Sunil Narine as their regular opener this season, Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) have left no room for ambiguity in their approach to the powerplay in an IPL campaign where teams are going harder than ever.
In the three matches out of four that Narine – a certainty in the team as KKR’s lead spinner – has batted beyond the first six overs, their powerplay scores have read 85/0, 86/1 and 56/1. Even when KKR scored 56 against Chennai Super Kings (CSK) on Monday – a relatively subdued run rate of 9.3 in comparison to 14-plus runs per over against Royal Challengers Bengaluru and Delhi Capitals — before slowing down to a subpar 137/9, it was the highest powerplay total conceded by the defending champions in this edition.
In essence, KKR have nothing to lose by assigning Narine, 35, as a pinch-hitter at the top of the order. On the days that he fires, he will get KKR off to rapid starts and help win matches. He has already done that twice this year. Against RCB, he clobbered 47 off 22 balls as KKR made a mockery of a target of 183 by chasing it down in 16.5 overs. A few days later, Delhi felt the fury of Narine’s scintillating 39-ball 85, an assault that took KKR to what would have been a record 272/7 if not for Sunrisers Hyderabad’s 277/3 against Mumbai Indians in this very tournament.
On the days that he does not come off, KKR won’t fret for two reasons. One, Narine is unlikely to have consumed too many deliveries before getting back to the dugout. Two, he’s paid the big bucks to pick wickets and restrict runs, so anything that he offers with the bat is a bonus.
That freedom is reflected in Narine’s batting. From the outset and at every given opportunity, Narine likes to move his front foot out of the way and deploy that free-flowing bat swing in search of the boundary option. It can be unsettling for the bowler running in, for conventional lines and lengths with the new ball don’t tend to work against Narine’s unorthodoxy. He has an attacking shot percentage of 83 this season.
Narine may not be able to sustain his current average of 40.25 and strike rate of 189.41, but he will be doing his bit as the quintessential pinch-hitter as long as he keeps striking north of 160. “I have one role and the less I know the better it is for me,” Narine, in his characteristic Trinidadian drawl, said when asked about his absence in KKR’s batting meetings, summing up his carefree approach with the willow.
The introduction of the impact player rule last season has only enhanced this freedom. With teams across the board having better batting depth as a result of this provision, KKR, who had Andre Russell coming in at No.8 on Monday, have even greater comfort in telling Narine to go completely berserk without ever worrying about the wickets lost. So, in the past while they had to discard the idea of the West Indian opening when his runs dried up, they are unlikely to do that this time around irrespective of the returns.
If KKR’s use of Narine the batter sparks interest – he was first tried as an opener in 2017, five seasons after his IPL debut – it’s because the pinch-hitter’s role is no longer in vogue. The white-ball game has evolved to a stage where there’s incredible firepower all through a batting unit, reducing the requirement for any one player to be assigned the specific task of upping the ante. But as Narine has shown, there’s perhaps still some value in a pinch-hitter aiming to disrupt the opposition’s best-laid plans.
