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Is Sunil Narine losing his Midas touch with the ball?

Sunil Narine has not lived up to his reputation in this IPL so far, Suraj Choudhari highlights how the remodeled bowling action has changed Narine’s effectiveness in the game.

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Sunil Narine has not lived up to his reputation in this IPL so far, Suraj Choudhari highlights how the remodeled bowling action has changed Narine’s effectiveness in the game.

Sunil Narine’s career graph is fascinating. He caught the attention of the cricketing cognoscenti with his guile and mystery which decimated batsmen in the 2011 Champions League T20. This performance earned him a slot in the West Indies One-Day International side. He later got to one of the grandest T20 stage — the Indian Premier League (IPL). He made the headlines in 2012, when he was picked by Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) in the Player Auction, at a mammoth price of $7, 00,000. He justified his selection, when he walked away with the Player of the Tournament award and steered KKR to their maiden IPL title in 2012.

The Trinidadian mystery spinner has been the backbone of KKR’s bowling attack since his inception into the IPL. He was the second-highest wicket-taker after Mohit Sharma in the previous edition, with 21 wickets in 16 matches at a miserly economy of 6.35. Narine was the single most outstanding reason for KKR’s IPL triumph. However, this year his run in the IPL has not been phenomenal so far.

Narine was reported for suspect action in last season’s Champions League T20 and went on to miss the recently-concluded ICC Cricket World Cup. After biomechanical analysis in Loughborough, ICC cleared him after he successfully remodeled his bowling action. KKR have been at loggerheads with the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) since the time Narine was first reported.  KKR had threatened to pull out of the IPL when the BCCI demanded retesting Narine’s action in Chennai prior to the tournament.

In spite of strong resistance from KKR, BCCI conducted went through the retest in Chennai before giving him clean chit to bowl in the IPL.

The modification of his action seems to have comprehensively transformed his effectiveness with the ball. He looks more vulnerable with every match. Confronting Narine in a T20 game was every batsman’s nightmare. The batsmen who once feared Narine are now playing him with ease.

Narine seems to have lost his mojo and his stats in five games so far in this IPL lend credence to the belief of his reduced effectiveness. Narine has only managed to pick two wickets and at career-worst economy of 7.35. He went for 147 runs in his overall quota of 20 overs and never seemed dominating, in sharp contrast to his overall IPL record of 67 wickets from 47 matches at an economy of 5.78.

With the old action, his penetrability was unmatched by anybody in the IPL. Narine practiced the special art of turning the ball both ways without a discernible change in action and combined with the pace, bounce and zip he extracted off the wicket, he was virtually impossible to tackle. His proficiency lied in his brilliant variations. Though classified as an off-spinner, he could turn the ball both ways at a good speed; which was his most lethal weapon. He invariably provided his team a break-through whenever a partnership was building which is like gold-dust in a game of uncertainties like T20. He used to outfox batsmen with his variations. But all these tricks are mysteriously missing with the new action.

His current bowling appears bereft of oomph and is easily manageable. The pace and bounce he was once famous for extracting is conspicuously missing, which makes him look like an average spinner. So far he’s not lived up to his reputation

Furthermore, he was reported again for suspect action putting his future participation in the IPL in jeopardy. Although he isn’t restricted from bowling yet, it seems unlikely that he will risk a permanent ban . In a game like cricket where the balance is heavily skewed in favour of batsmen,  courtesy new field restrictions, big bats etc which allow the batsmen the liberty to do anything at the crease, toeing the 15- degree line drawn by the International Cricket Council (ICC) helps restore balance between bat and ball.

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