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Legendary West Indies and Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) bowling all-rounder Sunil Narine became the only fourth player to make 500 T20 appearances during the Indian Premier League (IPL) clash against Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) on Friday and he made it memorable with an all-round performance.
During the match, Narine did not have a very good outing with the ball, as he could get one wicket for 40 runs in his four overs and Virat Kohli scored a lot off his bowling. He got the wicket of Glenn Maxwell. But during the run-chase of 183, Narine demolished the RCB bowling and killed the game within powerplay himself with an authoritative 47 in 22 balls, with two fours and five sixes. His runs came at a strike rate of 213.64. Narine has a fine record against RCB. In 11 innings against the franchise, Narine has made 279 runs at an average of 31.00, with two half-centuries. He strikes at a stupendous 195.10 against the RCB. His best score against them is 54. Coming to his statistics against other sides as a batter, Narine has made 816 runs in 87 innings in other teams. His average sees a massive drop to 11.83 and his strike rate is 151.67. His best overall score in the IPL is 75. Against RCB, Narine has taken 24 off his 165 IPL wickets at an average of 20.87, way less than his overall average of 25.83 in the tournament. His bowling strike rate also goes to 19 against this franchise as compared to his overall IPL strike rate of 22.98. After KKR won the toss, they opted to field. After losing skipper Faf early, Virat Kohli had a 65-run partnership with Cameron Green (33 in 21 balls, with four boundaries and two sixes) and a 42-run stand with Glenn Maxwell (28 in 19 balls, with three fours and a six). Virat scored 83* in 59 balls, with four boundaries and four sixes and took RCB to 182/6 along with Dinesh Karthik (20* in eight balls, with three sixes) in their 20 overs. Andre Russell (2/29) and Harshit Rana (2/39) were the pick of the bowlers for KKR. In the run chase, Phil Salt (30 in 20 balls, with two fours and two sixes) and Sunil Narine (47 in 22 balls, with two fours and five sixes) put KKR to a fine start with a quickfire 86-run stand in 39 balls. After Vyshak and Mayank Dagar (1/23 each) dismissed the openers, Venkatesh Iyer (50* in 30 balls, with three fours and four sixes) and skipper Shreyas Iyer (39 in 24 balls, with two fours and two sixes) guided KKR to a seven-wicket win with 19 balls to go. Sunil won 'Player of the Match' on his 500th match for his knock of 47 and one wicket. RCB is sixth in the points table with a win and two losses. They have just two points. KKR is at second with two wins in two games, with four points. (ANI)
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