Sunil Narine's role changed in KKR just before their match against Lucknow Supergiants

Sunil Narine has been pivotal to KKR's success in the initial stage of IPL 2024. He was named Man of the Match in two out of the three games they won so far. Kolkata Knight Riders have won three out of the four games so far in the league. They lost their previous match against Chennai Super Kings.

CSK limited KKR to 137/9 in their 20 overs in Chennai. The KKR batters after the good start from Narine and Angkrish Raghuvanshi in the powerplay failed to capitalize. The duo added 56 inside the powerplay following which the rest of the KKR batters could not add too many runs to the score.

Ravindra Jadecimated the KRR batting lineup with his spell of 3/18. Mustafizur Rahman took two wickets and Tushar Deshpande took three. CSK then chased down the total inside 18 overs to win the match.

SHORTS

View More

Your daily dose of cricket!

Loading...

Also Read: "This isn't the first time Virat Kohli has supported a player.."- Parthiv Patel

Ahead of KKR's next match against LSG, Sunil Narine was seen practicing fast bowling at the team's practice sessions. He was seen ambling across and bowing at a medium pace to Andre Russell. Talking about the KKR vs LSG rivalry, The Kolkata Knight Riders are yet to win a match against Lucknow Super Giants.

Watch: Sunil Narine Tries His Hand At Pace Bowling

Presenting you, world’s first mystery 𝗣𝗔𝗖𝗘𝗥 🤝 p<!---->i<!---->c<!---->.<!---->t<!---->w<!---->i<!---->t<!---->t<!---->e<!---->r<!---->.<!---->c<!---->o<!---->m<!---->/<!---->t<!---->f<!---->z<!---->3<!---->7<!---->q<!---->E<!---->j<!---->U<!---->z

— KolkataKnightRiders (@KKRiders) A<!---->p<!---->r<!---->i<!---->l<!----> <!---->1<!---->3<!---->,<!----> <!---->2<!---->0<!---->2<!---->4

The two teams played once in 2022 with LSG winning the match by 75 runs in the first game. KKR took the match close but LSG won the second match by a margin of two runs. The two teams played once last year with the Super Giants winning by one run at Eden Gardens.

LSG once again will play against KKR at the Eden Gardens on Sunday. They are heading into this match after a loss to Delhi Capitals in their last game.

Meanwhile, Gautam Gambhir who mentored LSG in 2022 and 2023 has now joined KKR as the team mentor. The most successful KKR skipper has a job on his hands against his former team.

Starting with the match against LSG, The Knight Riders will play five consecutive matches at home. This is their opportunity to bank on home conditions and win games.

After their loss to CSK, KKR skipper Shreyas Iyer tried explaining where they fell short in the game. Overall, he blamed the batters for not giving enough runs to their bowlers to play with.

"We got a phenomenal start in the powerplay, but we lost consecutive wickets. We weren't able to assess the conditions quickly after the powerplay, scoring runs wasn't easy. They (CSK) know the conditions pretty well, they bowled according to their plans."

"Wasn't easy (for the new batters) to go after them from the first ball. We were trying to construct the innings, but it didn't fall in place according to the plan. The wicket changed after the powerplay. We were in a comfortable place and we thought 160-170 was a good score, but we lost momentum."

"We have to go back to the drawing board and learn from that. I am glad this happened at the start of the tournament. When we go back, we know our home conditions pretty well. We need to analyse the situations and need to make the best use of it" said Iyer after loss to CSK.

Talking about Sunil Narine, He has scored 161 runs from four games at an average of 40.25 and a strike rate of 189.41. He has taken four wickets from four games so far.

His best season with the ball in recent times was 2021 when he took 16 wickets with the ball as KKR reached the final but lost to CSK. His form with bat and ball will be crucial for KKR going forward.

Also Read: Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Shami kicked aside as Trent Boult names his best new ball bowler