Playing for the Kolkata Knight Riders since his debut in the Indian Premier League back in 2012, Sunil Narine has emerged as one of the key players for this edition of the team over the years. Now, after all, fast forward to a Tuesday, April 29, in a match against the Delhi Capitals at Arun Jaitley Stadium in Delhi, where Narine is in the news again for achieving a milestone. Most importantly, he shares the world record for most all-time wickets taken for a single franchise in T20 cricket, with such a big set of achievements.
After Narine first played his inaugural T20 match with KKR, he went on to play 195 matches more and went on to take a mind-boggling 208 wickets. During the recent match, Narine showed his skills by taking three wickets while the opposition Delhi Capitals were chasing a whopping target of 205 runs, and his bowling stats for the day were pretty good as well, with 3 wickets for only 29 runs in 4 overs. This has placed him evenly up there with former England all-rounder Samit Patel, who also took 208 wickets for Nottinghamshire in T20 contests.
When it comes to the records in Men’s T20 cricket for a particular team, this is how it stands going
: – 208 – Samit Patel (Nottinghamshire) – 208* – Sunil Narine (Kolkata Knight Riders) – 199 – Chris Wood (Hampshire) – 195 – Lasith Malinga (Mumbai Indians) – 193 – David Payne (Gloucestershire).
Going further into the remarkable statistics of Narine, out of those 208 wickets total, 190 came in IPL alone in 186 matches, while he took another 18 wickets in only 9 Champions League T20 matches.
The Knight Riders won by 14 runs, thanks to Narine’s brilliant bowling performance on Tuesday in their encounter with the Delhi Capitals. This win has raised the hopes in their quest for playoffs and makings for a top-four finish in the league.
Narine’s firqst wicket came at a crucial time when he had DC captain Axar Patel caught off Harshit Rana on the second ball of the 14th over. Axar had was going well, having scored 43 runs in just 23 deliveries, with four fours and three sixes. Narine then bowled drinking Stubbs, who managed just a single run before walking back.
The third wicket came from Faf du Plessis, the ex-Proteas captain, who was caught by Rinku Singh on the second ball of the 16th over. Altogether, it was a wonderful day for Narine and the team, making the match very exciting and keeping the crowd on their toes!
