Another Narine lesson for RCB

Kolkata Knight Riders began their IPL 2018 campaign on a sprightly note with a resounding four-wicket win over Royal Challengers Bangalore, in front of a capacity crowd of 63,000 at the Eden Gardens, on Sunday (April 8). That the script would be on the same lines with the wrecker-in-chief being Sunil Narine again was not as expected. But as RCB would have it, Narine took his liking to them and scored a 17-ball fifty to help the hosts chase down a competitive 176 with seven balls to spare. However, at one stage, it looked though that KKR were destined to chase something even bigger, if not for Nitish Rana's double whammy which accounted for AB de Villiers and Virat Kohli's wickets. Those two moments in the end were the ones where KKR sealed the game to pick their first points in the new season.

How poorly prepared were RCB against Narine?

There was little novelty attached with Narine the opener this season, and most thought it was long gone, especially since he had opened the innings for KKR on 12 occasions in the 2017 edition. Back then, KKR's data and performance analyst AR Srikkanth had said in an interview to Cricbuzz, "You can see Sunil hitting the ball as cleanly as anyone else in the team. And you thought okay, if he is going to bat at number eight, if Sunil is going to face two balls there, he'll probably get what 8, or 10 runs, 12 maximum. If he is able to face 15 balls at number eight, it means our team is already doing bad. You have lost seven wickets. What if he can face 15 at the top of the order? That was the thought process."

But when Jersey No. 74 walked past the boundary line to open alongside Chris Lynn on Sunday, quite a few were left surprised again. And one thought that RCB, who had bore the brunt of Narine's bat in the past, would be better prepared to tackle their nemesis. Alas! It was not to be.

Skipper Kohli, whose trust has doubled Yuzvendra Chahal's powers in the past 15 months, started the proceedings with the legspinner. When the first move is the wrong move, there's very little teams can do to come back from there. Narine was treated with two loopy deliveries up front and while the first ball was hit straight down the ground for a four, the next was dispatched for a six. The move to start with a spinner against the Trinidadian showed the lack of homework done by the RCB camp.

Samuel Badree, the top-ranked T20 spinner then, had similarly been used in the previous edition against Narine, and the results were scathing with the left-hander picking 48 runs off his 16 deliveries. It is interesting to note that Narine had a strike of 221.21 against spinners and 124.34 against pacers before Sunday's knock and hits a six every 5.50 balls vs spin in comparison to 24 balls vs pace. Also, in the first six overs, Narine strikes at 176.19 which is the best by any batsman in the powerplay from the last five years of IPL.

Narine vs Spin/pace in IPL 2013 - 2017

Off the first five overs he faced in the innings, three were bowled by spinners and two by Chris Woakes. After Chahal, it was Washington Sundar's - one of the finest powerplay spinners - turn, who was smashed for two sixes and a four, albeit one of them being a lucky reprieve. While pace would have worked the best against Narine, Woakes's lines and lengths were off the mark. His two slower deliveries were picked for sixes and width on other two were duly punished for four. Although Woakes was expected to handle Narine better, having played with him for one full season last year, his poor numbers didn't come as much surprise as his economy rate of 10.34 in the first six overs is the second worst for any bowler in the powerplay with at least ten overs bowled (since IPL 2013).

By the time, Kohli realised that brute pace was the way forward, the damage had been done. Narine, who had wrecked RCB with a record 15-ball fifty in the 2017 edition - which also was the fastest till KL Rahul broke it earlier on Sunday, went onto register another fifty, off 17 balls. As Umesh Yadav, RCB's fastest bowler, was brought into the attack in the sixth over, his first ball - fuller in length and pacy, went whizzing past Narine's drive. Next ball was up again and Narine was undone by the pace as he dragged it back onto the stumps.

It's undoubtedly the most balanced RCB unit in a long time, and that it could be their best chance this year - not the first time it is being said of them though, the think-tank though didn't help themselves by coming up with some unimaginative decisions. Only if they had done their homework right against their nemesis, Umesh Yadav would have been brought on much earlier, and there could have been a different story altogether. For now, Narine had dealt his favourite opponents, one more blow.

Rana had nothing to lose and he ended up winning

"Mujhe lag raha tha ki mere paas khone ke liye kuch nahin hai, mere paas paane ke liye sab kuch hai..."

These could have very well been a line from one of KKR team co-owner, Shah Rukh Khan's movies. Rana, as he admitted, had never met the filmstar before Sunday, but the twin blows he dealt RCB with were as Bollywood-ish as it gets, and these lines that he said at the post-match press conference made it more like it.

While Dinesh Karthik's move to bowl five of the six powerplay overs with spinners worked well on a greenish, pacy Eden Gardens wicket, the arrival of de Villiers at the crease reversed the momentum in a jiffy. Just around the end of the first ten overs, de Villiers unleashed two back-to-back sixes off Kuldeep Yadav, and if that wasn't enough, he went after Narine too, hitting him for a four and a six in the following over. So when RCB were sizing up for a final flourish in the last six overs, Karthik had no option to play around with. Piyush Chawla had been bowled out and both Kuldeep and Narine had one over each, but both had just suffered at de Villiers's hands. Mitchell Johnson had not just been hit for 10 runs in his previous over by de Villiers, but had only two left - something Karthik was more keen to use at the death. Andre Russell had bowled the previous over, leaving the captain with one frontline choice - R Vinay Kumar. But as it turned out, Karthik introduced part-timer Rana into the bowling attack. Bowling a part-timer is often a double-edged sword. And it proved to be one.

When Rana bowled a short ball to begin with, de Villiers whacked it deep into the mid-wicket stands. The batsman's intentions were clear, he was looking to make Rana's over the perfect launchpad for a big finish. Off the next ball, which was short again, the South African attempted another pull, but this time he went too hard at it and a top edged it to mid-wicket. Kohli was out the next ball, a yorker that slipped under the skipper's defenses.

Bowling a diffident Vinay Kumar probably involved as much risk on the evening as bowling a part-timer, and Karthik went ahead with his gut feeling. However, Rana later revealed that it was not just a mere throw of the dice by the skipper. "I do bowl at the domestic level for Delhi. I bowled in the practice game earlier as well, and I had conceded about 14 odd runs from four overs and picked some one or two wickets as well. Dinesh bhaiya had told me then, 'Be ready this season, you might be needed for an over or two at times,'" Rana said on Sunday (April 8).

The youngster, who created ripples last season with his tremendous hitting skills at the Mumbai Indians, shone with the ball before he could exhibit his skills with the bat, in 2018. And he's not complaining about it. "From the end, I bowled, I had seen Piyush bhaiya and Narine bowling from there, and I had noticed that the ball was gripping a bit from there. So I told myself that there was a chance. I knew if I can pitch it in the right areas, I can do well. I backed myself and luckily I got two big wickets. It was a great feeling and at that stage, those two wickets were very important."