Secret to Sunil Narine’s success isn’t his craft but his persona

Sunil Narine might not be the man you think he is. The demure, self-effacing cricketer, indifferent to celebrations after nabbing wickets, has three sports cars in his garage, including a Range Rovers that could hit a maximum speed of 234 kph in the blink of an eye, beside four other luxury cards. His face gazes from India’s first live casino and North America’s most trusted optometric firm. He is the unofficial hair-dresser of his Kolkata Knight Riders teammate Andre Russell, the latter says in a podcast on the franchise website. On the dance-floor, he could match the grooves of Russell and Chris Gayle.

He has not been the man you thought he was on the field either. Picked as a mystery spinner for seven million dollars in 2012, a hefty fee that he justified in his first three seasons alone, he is an indiscernible proposition now. He breathes no air of mystery, yet he inspires dread in batsmen. He hardly batted in his first five seasons—faced only 47 balls and collected a pittance of 31 runs, striking a brace of sixes and fours each. In the next seven editions, he would pillage 1,476 runs, at an average strike rate of 155.8. From an exigency pinch-hitting opener, he has transformed into a consistent destroyer in the powerplays.

The two powers had blended powerfully this season. So far, he has smashed 461 runs at a strike rate of 182 and grabbed 15 wickets conceding only 6.63 runs an over. Only seven batsmen have ever managed to plunder 450-plus runs at a strike rate of 175 or more, showing how arduous it is to score fast and score consistently. Thirty nine runs more and he would become the first cricketer in the league to score 500 runs and snare 15 wickets. Only Shane Watson has scored more runs (472) and taken more wickets (17) than Narine in a single episode (2008). Both the figures, though, are within his reach. He has left behind an army of other luminous names, those that are labelled genuine all-rounders. Hardik Pandya, Jacques Kallis and Andrew Symonds, to name but a few. It’s not an aberration either. Twice in the last seven issues has he totalled 350-plus runs; thrice in this span has he pinched 15 wickets or more too.

By the conventional yardsticks, he makes a strong case to be considered a genuine all-rounder. He bends games with the bat; he twists games with the ball. He batters quick runs, belts thrifty overs, scores big runs, snaffles big wickets.

Picked as a mystery spinner for seven million dollars in 2012, a hefty fee that he justified in his first three seasons alone, Narine is an indiscernible proposition now. (PTI)

Then, he is not the all-rounder you think when you think of all-rounders. Even now, his hitting is viewed as fluke in some quarters, an alignment of stars rather than an exhibition of genuine skill. It can’t be wronger. As the seasons have rolled on, he has added more layers to his batting. He not only clubs and clouts, but late-cuts and leg-glides too. He has finessed to use the bowlers’ pace, has expanded his scoring range, developed even a one-handed flap through point, and honed his defensive technique. The fundamentals to hit big always existed—he has a long reach, despite his short build, he has a powerful upper body, hidden in the baggy shirts, sharp eyes that judge the length fast and a fluid bat-swing. His feet are often crease-tied, the movements are premeditated but he rarely loses his balance or the stillness of his head.

The biggest virtue could be that he does not fear losing his wicket; unlike specialist batsmen, not even his subconscious whispers to him to guard his wicket. In that sense, he is a one-off—a batsman without the trained instincts of a specialist, yet with the natural impulses to judge the length and find the gaps. He could fall for the simplest of traps, or he could foil your best-laid plans. But his batting works, longer than it was expected, just as his bowling.

His mystery was supposed to wean away one day. There is existence more perilous than that of the mystery spinner. Word gets around, tactics are discussed and the mystery is gradually unravelled. The batting form perhaps arrived at the ripest time in his career, just when his bowling stocks were plummeting after repeated remodelling of action and the fading of his mystery. After 67 scalps in his first three instalments, he managed only 28 in the next three.

But he didn’t flee into the shadows of oblivion. He could have just retreated into his sprawling mansion in Arima, in the outskirts of Port of Spain, and nibbled on the millions he had saved, or striven in lower franchise leagues and still earned millions. But he chose to redefine himself; to demystify his mystery and polish his mastery of lengths and a psychiatrist’s gift of reading a batsman’s mind. These days, he mostly bowls loopy off-breaks, that barely kicks or kinks after pitching, or turns or fizzes. Rarely, out of urgency that instinct, he flicks a carrom-ball that breaks away, ever so fractionally, after landing. He shuffles the angles, mixes the pace, alters the degree of his loop, uses the depth and breadth of the crease, toy with the batsman’s mind, and rely on natural variations. The action is more side-on and fluent, he hides the ball behind his body in the run-up.

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Yet, these tools suffice to make him a dangerous bowler. He is no longer a 20-wicket-a-season bowler, but his combined batting and bowling prowess has made him a force again. That perhaps is the only mystery about him—how he has survived these years, amidst the doubts and derision, action tweaks and finger injuries.

The real mystery is not his craft, but the man himself. Lesser men would have been left broken. Then, he might not be the man you think he is.

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