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‘He had the ball going both ways ‘ – Sunil Narine on how he looked up to Muttiah Muralitharan in his initial days

Sunil Narine is arguably one of the most famous and potent spinners to represent the West Indies on the international scene. Not only just international cricket, but Narine has also been a lynchpin and a travelling cricketer across several franchise-based leagues being played all over the world.

 The right-arm spinner has now spilled the beans about how he used to keenly observe Sri Lanka’s legendary spinner Muttiah Muralitharan’s bowling and tried to add variations to his bowling during his early days. He picked up the tag of being a mystery spinner very early on in his career. Narine has spun a web with his bag of tricks in several prominent batting line-ups over the years and continues to be one of the toughest spinners to face off against.

 I Looked up to Muralitharan: Narine

“In the Caribbean it was tough. The more I bowled spin, the more I looked to Muttiah Muralitharan – he had the ball going both ways. But in the beginning, it was tough. West Indies didn’t have spinners who were playing consistently at the time; they would always play one-off games, where fast bowlers would dominate,” the spinner said in the most recent edition of the Cricket Monthly.

In the game of cricket, though, batting is Narine’s, first love. He was first sent in to open the innings in a Big Bash League game for the Melbourne Renegades and since then, there has been no looking back. The West Indies player has been a floater and has opened the innings numerous times for T20 franchises all around the world. He has played a lot of game-changing innings with the bat as well.

 “To be honest, batting was and still is, my favourite aspect of the game. Then the first game I played, I picked up 14 wickets in a four-day game. In Trinidad, people knew I could bat, but this was when I became Narine the bowler. That’s where I became a so-called ”mystery” bowler,” he added.

Narine was a part of the Trinidad and Tobago side for the Champions League T20 tournament. He caught a lot of eyeballs when he had Mumbai on the mat in a league game. That catapulted Narine into the Indian T20 League. Gautam Gambhir liked him so much that he picked him in the auction straightaway when he was the skipper of the Kolkata side. From there, the rest was history. Narine has been an all-time great in the Indian T20 league.