IPL 2018 | Talking points - Nitish Rana’s bowling brilliance, Sunil Narine’s attempt to change the T20 batting convention

04/08/2018

Although the game slowed down a bit towards the end, it would indeed go down as one of the most entertaining matches in the league so far as the fortunes fluctuated till the very end. However, the game would be one to remember for Nitish Rana and Sunil Narine for their sheer majesty.

Eden back to good old days

Both the Late Prabir Mukherjee, who was in charge of the Kolkata wicket for almost three decades, or the current curator, Sujan Mukherjee, especially at the time of taking over the duties, had a fascination towards dry soil and that’s why, for long, Kolkata has been a spinner’s paradise and it was only the big turners who ruled the roost in most of the matches at the venue.

However, when Sourav Ganguly took over duties at Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB), he decided to change the soil of the ground altogether. And then started Sujan’s pursuit of finding the proper soil to bind the Eden track and, at the same time, to keep the original essence of the historic track. And finally, he found black soil from a remote place in South 24 Parganas of West Bengal called Canning. Close to 10 to 15 samples were tested extensively before one soil eventually made the cut and the wicket turned into a pacer’s paradise.

But, the way India-Australia ODI match panned out in September was a pleasant surprise. As the match unfolded, both the teams had to open their bowling with a spinner and the pacers didn’t have any sort of natural purchase off the surface.

Spinners enjoyed success today too, Kolkata employed 4 spinners today and they combined to take 5 of the 7 wickets to fall. It seemed like we are now back to the good old days of the Eden and the way Kolkata will approach matches at home will be of certain interest this IPL.

Nitish Rana underlines his importance, this time with the ball

The changes in surroundings for Nitish Rana were aided by the faith Mumbai Indians showed in him last year by making him bat up the order. Mumbai's depth in terms of frontline domestic batsmen in the middle order has been a talking point and when Rana batted successfully, everyone was looking to secure his services this season. And when Kolkata Knight Riders successfully managed to win the bidding war for Rana, they knew they had a special batsman in their ranks. But I highly doubt that KKR completely understood Rana’s credentials as a bowler beforehand. However, as things stand at the moment, the Delhi boy turned out to be their saviour when it seemed a partnership between AB de Villiers and Kohli was blossoming.

AB hit him for a six on the first ball of the 15th over, but in the next one, the talisman aimed for another big one, but instead holed out a catch to Mitchell Johnson at deep mid-wicket. After dismissing ABD, he could have gone to the dressing room sporting a smile. But Rana was not done. He straightened the next ball a bit to Virat Kohli and guess what, the RCB skipper was castled.

Although Rana didn’t come out to bowl in the innings again, it will go down as one of the most memorable days of his cricket career, albeit not only for his batting.

Sunil Narine adds different chapter to T20 batting

When Kolkata took the punt of batting Sunil Narine as an opener, everyone and their pet dog was surprised. But the team, that has one of the best data analyst units in the league, indeed saw something in him and that is the impulsiveness with which the Caribbean player bats in the T20 cricket.

The way KKR deployed Narine as an outright hard-hitting top-order batsman shows how much wickets are overvalued in T20 cricket. Given only 5.80 wickets have been dismissed in a T20 innings on an average, this leaves the team with a lot of wasted wickets, but KKR understood that. Due to his lack of prowess as a batsman, Narine has the license to attack with an free-mind, a quality which is so hard to find in T20 top-order batsmen. This freedom in his mind has metamorphosed him from a pure spinner into an excellent T20 all-rounder.

While the teams hardly spend time in developing hard-hitting capabilities of their bowlers, mostly due to the lack of time, Narine’s development as a pure hard-hitter hints at how important it is now-a-days to make your bowlers aware of the importance of the batting.