Sunil Narine’s return to the top was pivotal to the Kolkata Knight Riders’ success in IPL 2024. Should he reprise that role in the 2025 edition? Abhishek Mukherjee answers.
Until the end of 2016, Narine had made 413 runs from 198 T20 games – barely more than two runs a match. True, he had batted in only 69 of these, but if teams had not felt the need to utilise Narine's batting, it probably had to do with his batting skills.
Thus, when Narine strode out to open batting for the Melbourne Renegades on New Year’s Day, some fans might have felt they had been hungover from the New Year’s celebrations: could it have been because he was named after a legendary Test opener?
A quick cameo encouraged his team to use him once again, then a third time, before he returned to the bottom half of the line-up.
It would have remained a forgotten experiment, had Anirudha Srikkanth, performance and strategies analyst at the Kolkata Knight Riders, not been at the venue for the first match. Narine hit only three fours and two sixes across the three games, but Srikkanth noticed how cleanly he hit them. He convinced the KKR management.
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Still, KKR began cautiously. They waited for two games, both of which were away from home. Finally, in the familiarity of the home turf, captain Gautam Gambhir himself walked out with Narine. The content of the murmurs in the stands of the historic Eden Gardens might not have sat well with the censorship board that day, but they were silenced as Narine blazed away to an 18-ball 37. He hit three sixes in these 18 balls. Between them, his teammates hit two in 81.
That season, KKR unleashed something their opposition teams were not prepared for. Opening batting, he hit 222 runs in 12 innings – but while striking at 175. In 2018, the first year of the Dinesh Karthik era, that shot up to 343 runs at 197. Across the two seasons, no other opener struck at even 161. Narine was taking down bowlers even when the shock factor had worn off.
Then it stopped. In 2019, he struck at 169, but was used at the top only seven times. Across the next four editions, he opened only seven more times without any success. Then came 2024.
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The return of Narine
Gambhir’s playing days were over, but in 2024, he reunited with his old franchise as a mentor. The Gambhir mantra of T20 coaching has several salient features, of which two are relevant here. One, he likes batters who bowl and bowlers who bat. And two, he wants his team to attack from the onset. Opening with Narine and giving him the license to go for it fulfilled both.
The result was glorious even by Narine’s standards. Not only did he strike at 181 but he also averaged 34.85. This included one of the savagest hundreds his historic home ground has seen.
With Phil Salt, Narine formed an extraordinary partnership at the top, scoring 10.1 runs an over inside the powerplay. True, Sunrisers Hyderabad scored at 10.52, but Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma used up two batting slots. Narine did not. His primary objective in the team was still to bowl four quiet overs. Anything and everything he did with the bat was bonus.
The ploy had worked, but will it work again? Or was it a one-off? For that, one needs to understand why Narine opened in the first place.
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Why use Narine to open?
It has been more than eight years since he first opened. Across 146 innings at the top – certainly a large enough sample size – Narine averages 17.84. Has the experiment been worth it?
The question can be answered with another. Is batting average at all relevant for Narine, whose bowling makes him an automatic choice?
Let us understand Srikkanth’s idea: “He scored so quickly that he could transform a game in 15 balls. If he gets out first ball he gets out. We don’t put any pressure on him.”
Srikkanth might have used “15 balls” casually to speak about a short innings. He might not have. But even if he lasted fewer, it would have been fine as long as he scored quickly. When a T20 team is built, there are usually five designated bowlers including at least one all-rounder. If the five batters, the keeper, and the all-rounder face 17 balls on an average, they should be able to play out the 120 balls. If there is a second all-rounder, the count comes down to 15.
Narine’s innings is outside all of theirs. He was picked in the side as a bowler, and after all these years, would probably be a sure starter even if he were a walking wicket. His batting is still incidental to his selection in the XI. In other words, KKR lose nothing if he gets out first ball every time.
Trying to hit the first ball one faces and getting out is acceptable in the death overs but not at the top. That is the conditioning KKR overcame while using Narine at the top.
Of all IPL openers with a thousand runs, Narine’s strike rate of 177 is the highest. Of all batters with five hundred runs in the powerplay, he is again the quickest scorer, with 171. So why not use him there again?
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Do KKR have an alternative?
Open or not, Narine will play, as will Andre Russell and an overseas fast bowler. For the remaining slot, Quinton de Kock is the likeliest option. And if de Kock plays, he will open. KKR need to find de Kock's partner. Is there a better candidate than Narine?
Ajinkya Rahane, the new KKR captain, has three times as many runs as an IPL opener – but at 122. At the top, he struck at 104 in 2022 and at 108 in 2024; in between, he had a remarkable season in 2023, but he did not open batting.
Angkrish Raghuvanshi has never opened in the IPL. In 2024, he was KKR’s designated No.3 when Venkatesh Iyer did not bat there. There may be a case to promote him, but why change a functional Raghuvanshi-after-Narine combination?
New vice-captain Iyer impressed in the UAE leg of the 2021 IPL, but that was a low-scoring phase that required different skills. If 2024 was anything to go by, one can expect flat pitches and batters, boosted by the impact player, coming out to hit from the first ball. Besides, he strikes at 169 at No.3.
While there are multiple top-order alternatives who might have to play out of position in the middle order if Narine opens, there is little evidence to show that any of them would do a better job as an opener than him.
