Former Australian opener Matthew Hayden has praised the Kolkata Knight Riders all-rounder Sunil Narine for his outstanding display of batting in the IPL 2024 game between KKR and PBKS at Eden Gardens in Kolkata on April 26. Despite Narine’s impressive performance with both bat and bowl, KKR lost the contest by eight wickets.
Narine showed his hard-hitting skills and got 71 runs off just 32 balls, comprising 9 fours and 4 sixes. Additionally, he played a crucial role in a 138-run opening partnership within 10.2 overs. Despite his batting brilliance, Narine’s bowling figures were 4-0-24-2 on a pitch favoring batsmen.
Hayden said that he can understand the pain of Narine as his best performance came in a losing cause.
“I have been in these situations where you are the performer of the game. And when you lose a match like that, it hurts so badly. I felt so bad for him after he came out to hit the most fours in the innings. It was salt all over the wounds. He is doing his job; he is averaging 49 in this IPL,” Hayden told Star Sports.
Narine has been the standout performer for KKR in IPL 2024, demonstrating remarkable consistency. As of now, he holds the title of the leading run-scorer for the Knights where he has scored 357 runs from 8 matches with an impressive average of 44.62 and a striking rate of 184.02.
“I would never have thought that we would talk about Narine from a batting point of view. But he has come back to his credit. I have heard about how hard he trains and how much he values his batting. He is a batting tragic. When you think of Sunil, it’s about his mystery bowling, not so much his batting. But well done,” Hayden added.
