Gautam Gambhir, former two-time IPL-winning captain with Kolkata Knight Riders, who is the franchise’s mentor in IPL 2024, praised West Indies’ Sunil Narine for the knock he played last night against Rajasthan Royals.
Narine, who was originally a mystery player, transformed into an opening batsman after his power-hitting ability came to the fore and has been opening for KKR ever since. This season he has been in top form and last night’s performance by him was a prime example of that.
Having arrived to open alongside Phil Salt, Sunil Narine began attacking the RR players from the start, just as he has done this season so far.
But his innings were much more special yesterday in front of the home fans at the Eden Gardens stadium, which finally saw their home team lose, but they couldn’t be more grateful that the franchise has someone like Narine.
The West Indian showed his batting power in full swing and was largely responsible for KKR setting the target of 224.
What does Gautam Gambhir say about Sunil Narine?
After Phil Salt’s dismissal on the third ball of the fourth over when KKR was 21, Sunil Narine was joined by their talented young number 3 batsman Angkrish Raghuvanshi.
Narine and Raghuvanshi were undeterred by the wicket as they continued to recklessly attack the RR bowlers and put together an 85-run partnership before the uncapped Indian batsman returned after scoring 30 off 18 deliveries.
Then Shreyas Iyer and Andre Russell came and went for 11 and 13 respectively in the space of 4 overs (12-16), but Narine was still there.
Sunil Narine showed his long-range hitting ability very well as he caused even more damage in the death overs, scoring his first full century and leaving the crease when KKR were 195 runs out.
His knock intrigued Gautam Gambhir to take to X (formerly Twitter) today and praise Narine for his stupendous knock. “There was, there is, there will be… only one!” Here’s what Gambhir had to say about the West Indies international.
There was, there is, there will be… only one! pic.twitter.com/tphZngUWhx
– Gautam Gambhir (Modi Ka Parivar) (@GautamGambhir) April 17, 2024
Although in the end KKR couldn’t get the win, Sunil Narine’s knock was something to remember and talked about for a long time.
After the first innings ended and when Narine was asked to speak to the commentators, the left-hand batsman revealed that he was KKR’s mentor, who again gave him the confidence to go ahead and open the innings for Knight Riders. “Gautam Gambhir gave me the confidence and security to do well. He backed me as an opener.”
Gautam Gambhir’s Tweet Receives Mixed Reactions
Meanwhile, the tweet made by Gautam Gambhir has received a lot of mixed reactions from fans. A Rajasthan Royals fan commented on Gambhir’s tweet using a picture of Jos Buttler and used the same type of sentence that Gambhir used and wrote: “There was, there is, there will be… only one KKR owner Jos Buttler!” .
The fan gave another response, this time using Narine’s bowling action and writing: “There was, there is, there will be… just one chucker!”