Narine demolishes RCB with fastest IPL fifty
Sunil Narine hunted down a target of 157 with such prejudice that he reached a fifty off 15 balls
Sunil Narine hunted down a target of 157 with such prejudice that he reached a fifty off 15 balls
Commentator: Varun Shetty
We didn't get to see Kohli's response, folks. So that is the end of our coverage for this game. Gujarat Lions have elected to bowl against Kings XI in the other game, and my colleague Deivarayan Muthu will shepherd you through it. Thanks for joining in.
Have a good night.
Narine: I'm surprised too. Lynn just said keep your eyes on the ball, keep focussed and swing at it. I try to keep it simple. I'll hopefully get used to the expectations but it really was a team effort. Umesh's wickets early especially were key and I'm thankful for it.
Sunil Narine is the Man of the Match.
Gautam Gambhir: I haven't seen such a partnership. Unbelievable effort. You don't expect people to get 105 in 6 overs. I reckon Lynn is the hardest hitter of the ball in international cricket. He showed how mentally tough he is to come back from an injury and bat like this. It was a team decision to send Narine up the order because he would hardly bat at No. 6 or No. 7. We also though it would make it easy on Lynn to take his time at the other end on his return.
Vinod Rajpal: "Big loss for the advertisers too for todays match ending half hour early "
West Indian: "Narine certainly has made a strong case for MVP this season...he has really done Russell's job to perfection."
7.34pm So we finish on schedule despite the rain. What a stunning performance from Kolkata. Some way to get into the top two.
Virat Kohli said at the toss that he would've batted first anyway. He expected this pitch to be sluggish. And it was - but only as long as RCB were batting. It might have been rain that completely switched things after their innings. Or is that unfair on the unbelievable batting of Sunil Narine? And Chris Lynn? Perhaps. It didn't look particularly easy after they had got out.
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Sunil Narine scored 28 runs through the long-off region, including three sixes
Sunil Narine had never scored a fifty in T20s before today, but he changed that in some style
The West Indian's devastating ability to hit straight in the Powerplay - when teams rarely employ a long-off or long-on - has brought him great rewards