Sunil Narine scores first century of his career in KKR vs RR match, credits Gautam Gambhir for his form

Sunil Narine slammed the maiden century of his career on Tuesday as he scored 109 against Rajasthan Royals in IPL 2024. The Kolkata Knight Riders batter took just 49 balls to get to his first century in IPL which is also the first for him in any format. His innings came to an end after a 56-ball 109-run knock which came at a strike rate of 194.64.

Narine was dismissed in the 18th over of KKR’s innings by Trent Boult who cleaned up the West Indian.

With his whirlwind knock, Narine became the third KKR batter to score an IPL hundred after Brendon McCullum (158* vs RCB in 2008) and Venkatesh Iyer (104 vs MI in 2023).

Narine is also the third player after Rohit Sharma and Shane Watson to take a hat-trick and score a hundred in IPL.

He is currently third in the Orange Cap race with 276 runs in six matches, behind Virat Kohli (361) and Riyan Parag (284).

In the mid-innings break, Narine reflected on his blistering hundred and credited KKR team mentor Gautam Gambhir for giving him the confidence to open again.

“(On being asked if ever thought he’d be in the Orange Cap race) I would have taken it as a joke because I haven’t opened in such a long time or did much with the bat in the years past. (Opening this year) With GG (Gambhir) coming back, he gave me the confidence and his assurance that I’ll open the batting,” he said.

Talking about his mindset as an opener, Narine said, “The job is just to go out there and try to give a good start, whatever the situation is, still keep going because if you try to face dot balls in the powerplay, it could hurt you in the backend. So just go there and try to give your team a good start.”

Eventually, KKR posted 223/6 batting first at the Eden Gardens. Besides Narine, Angkrish Raghuvanshi (30) and Rinku Singh (20*) made useful contributions.