IPL 2025: De Kock lauds Narine, Rana after thumping win over CSK

Chennai: Kolkata Knight Riders opener Quinton de Kock lauded all-rounder Sunil Narine and pacer Harshit Rana for their heroics in the side’s eight-wicket commanding win over Chennai Super Kings at Chepauk on Friday.

Narine returned with the figures of 3-13 in his four overs and also played a knock of 44 runs in 18 balls studded with five sixes and two fours to take the side over the line with 59 balls to spare while chasing a paltry target of 104. He was awarded Player of the Match for his dual contributions.

“It’s always mixing it up. I think it’s hard to line up certain spin bowlers like that because you never know what you’re going to get. On top of that, having that amount of skill, the areas they bowl, Sunil prides himself on the areas that he bowls and so does Varun. They’re always working on their games, always trying to get better,” the Proteas batter said in the post-match press conference.

“Sunil, when he bats, he brings the X factor. I think every bowler knows he’s going to come hard. He practices really hard. He’s always at practice. I don’t think he’s missed a practice, even optional practices. He really does work on it,” he added.

De Kock went on to praise pacer Rana who bagged two wickets in the match.

“He is our big fast bowler and we try to bowl him as a wicket-taker. It depends on the scenarios you face. With the new ball, strike up very early. Today we thought, ‘okay, let’s go with the spinner to start off and then he’ll come in’ and then that’s his job is to come in and make sure always like break a wicket or when the wicket is broken to come on and just try and keep getting wickets,” de Kock said.

He added that KKR want Rana to operate with multiple plans.

“He doesn’t have one set. We’re not trying to give him one set plan. We want to give him as many chances as he can to pick up wickets for the team. Even though we’ve got the two spinners, but as a main fast bowler, we’re going to get to certain wickets or stadiums where we’re going to need our big fast bowler to stand up and really do what he did tonight,” he said.

Elaborating on their plan of playing three spinners including Varun Chakaravarthy and Moeen Ali along with Narine, the left-handed opener credited past experiences of skipper Ajinkya Rahane and Moeen with CSK to pull the move.

“When we bowled it seemed a lot slower, gripped a bit and our bowlers really enjoy that. We have got guys like Jinx and Mo who have been here before and they kind of knew that, so that’s why we played an extra spinner,” de Kock said.

“I do think the second innings it got slightly better. It did come on a bit better, or at least that’s what I felt, that’s how it played, sort of slow and just got better and better during the innings went on,” the batter added.

IANS