Dinesh Karthik talks about Sunil Narine’s opening position

KKR succumbed to a rather tame loss to SRH in the end, losing by 5 wickets and with 6 balls to spare.

SRH’s win was setup by a brilliant bowling performance from the SRH bowling unit and an equally average KKR batting performance.

The biggest talking point from the game was Sunil Narine not walking out to bat with Chris Lynn for KKR after they were put into bat.

Narine had fired big time for KKR as an opener last year and raced to a half century of just 19 balls in their first outing against RCB. However, this time round Uthappa and Lynn were preffered as the opening duo for some inexplicable reason.

But there was some rationale behind the move according to Karthik, who revealed that it was a move that was aimed to spring a surprise or two for the SRH bowling unit.

“Basically, we wanted to send the batsmen according to the situation. When left arm spinner was bowling, we wanted Narine to go out there and express himself. I was thinking 160-170 would be a good score to defend but I don’t think we batted as well as we could have. We play as we see, we try to see which bowlers are not at their best and try to go after them.” Karthik said.

We’ll have to wait and see if KKR use the bluff or the double bluff next time round.

The KKR think tank will have to realise that Narine is at his best when the fielders are in the ring, as he can go over the top without having to risk his wicket too much.

When the field is spread out during the middle overs, Narine would find it tough to manoeuvre the ball around, thus putting more pressure on himself and his partner. Play him up the order or slot him into the tail.