Batting Has Always Been My First Love: Sunil Narine

West Indies and Kolkata Knight Riders off-spinner Sunil Narine may have impinged himself as one of the greatest spinners in the history of franchise T20 cricket but that has diminished his love for batting.

Narine will go down in history as one of the greatest foreign cricketers to have ever graced the cauldron that is the Indian Premier League. The Trinidad and Tobago tweaker is the 8th most successful bowler in the history of the cash-rich league, having taken as many as 127 wickets from 120 matches.

He was one of the prime spearheads when Kolkata Knight Riders won the IPL title back in 2012 and 2014. In 2012, he picked up 24 wickets and finished as the second-highest wicket-taker in what turned out to be a triumphant campaign for the Gautam Gambhir-led unit.

Two years later, he went one step ahead as he claimed 21 wickets to win the coveted ‘Purple Cap’ as Kolkata Knight Riders defeated Kings XI Punjab in the summit clash to clinch their second title.

With his bowling on the wane in the past few years, Sunil Narine has reinvented himself as a white-ball basher with Kolkata Knight Riders using him as ‘pinch-hitter’. Narine’s success as a pinch-hitter does not really come as a surprise given his love for batting.

In a recent interview with Kolkata Knight Riders, Sunil Narine revealed that when it comes to cricket, batting has always been his first love. He revealed that he has always put more focus on his batting and it was only when he turned 18-19 that bowling too over.

“Once you are in cricket, Lara was the only guy who you probably support, because I love batting and batting is something I always enjoyed and I’m still enjoying it. I think bowling came second. I always put more focus on batting and at age 18-19, bowling took over. So I started batting less, which probably didn’t help but at the end of the day, it happened. And I wouldn’t have it the other way,” Sunil Narine was quoted as saying on kkr.in.

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