Sunil Narine became the fourth player after Kieron Pollard (660), Dwayne Bravo (570) and Shoaib Malik (542) to play 500 T20s.
Bengaluru: Sunil Narine made his record 500th T20 game memorable with the bat as his 22-ball 47 helped Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) maintain their IPL 2024 winning streak on Friday with a seven-wicket win over Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium. Opening the innings, Narine took the RCB bowler to cleaners and put on 86 runs for the opening wicket Phil Salt in the seventh over. During his knock, Narine plundered five sixes and two fours to take the game away.
This was KKR’s sixth consecutive win against RCB at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium since 2016. RCB had a 4-2 win record against the opponent at home between 2008 and 2015. KKR have now won five of their last six matches against RCB, they had lost four on the trot before this sequence. “It is a nice milestone. Hopefully, there are 500 more to come. Great to perform like this,” Narine said after the game.
Speaking on his own batting, Narine thanked the support staff for the encouragement. “Just self belief and support staff giving encouragement. Little bit of hard work and it is helping,” he added. Venkatesh, who hit a 50 off 30 balls, also credited Narine for taking the pressure off at the top of the order.
“The ball was coming on really well in the evening. Credit goes to Sunil Narine whose runs took the pressure off us. We just had to finish formalities,” the southpaw added. While KKR’s approach was exemplified by Venkatesh, who was trying hard to regain his relevance in white ball formats.
The left-hander found his range from the word go, as pacer Alzarri Joseph suffered the brunt of his aggressive intentions. But KKR should profusely thank Narine and Salt, who subjugated RCB bowlers in the Power Play with astonishing power-hitting.
There was a hint of sluggishness in the Chinnaswamy surface but there was hardly any effort by the RCB bowlers to exploit it with slower balls like their Knight Riders counterparts. However, Narine’s stay at the crease ended when left-arm spinner Mayank Dagar cleaned him up.
With this win, KKR rose to the second place, thus pushing Rajasthan Royals to third. Chennai Super Kings top the table. Interestingly, the trio of CSK, KKR and RR, all have four points each, but their positions are based in the NRR.