Gautam Gambhir had a new opening partner at the Eden Gardens on Thursday night. It wasn’t Chris Lynn or Robin Uthappa. It was Sunil Narine who walked out to bat along with his Kolkata Knight Riders captain. Eyebrows were raised, questions were asked.Why Narine of all? The wronged would be answered in due course of time.And how!

Kings XI Punjab would be shell shocked at the end of powerplay and still find it difficult to come to terms as to what hit them for those 36 balls. It was a Narine hurricane that would blow the bells off the Kings XI bowlers who were left looking for answers to break a batting barrage between Gambhir&Narine. Every delivery they bowled to Narine, was treated with a wild swing of the bat. If it missed, it went on to the keeper, if it hit the willow, Boy it stayed hit.Gambhir, from the other end, couldn’t help but applaud his new-found batting partner’s willow talk.

“I really enjoyed it and it takes a lot of pressure off my shoulders,” Gambhir told iplt20.comafter the match. “With Narine on the other side I knew there was someone on the other side who is going to go hard at the bowlers and score runs at will, that too at each and every delivery.”

“My job is to keep batting as long as I can at one end with Narine going berserk at the other end. With that, I know that there is Narine and then the rest of the batting to follow.”

On the eve of their first home game, Narine was amongst the first ones to hit the nets. One wondered why Narine was getting a long stint ahead of any of the other regular batsmen. The answers were there to see on game day. “I did spend a lot of time at the nets. I do enjoy my batting and I have walked out to bat early in the innings for my T20 franchise in Australia,” Narine said. “Today I was asked to bat at the top and I took the opportunity with both hands. I loved batting with Gambhirat the top tonight. Batting in that position I get the freedom to express myself and go for my shots and give the kind of start the team wants.”

“A lot of them underestimate Sunil’s batting prowess,” Gambhir added. “Having Sunil in the side is always a luxury with his quality of bowling and as someone who can hit the big ball. He just mentioned that he has nine or ten batsmen to follow and he has the license to get off to a sparkling start.”

So do we see more of Narine opening the batting? “If it keeps working we will see Narine at the top,” Gambhir agreed. “When he bats at No.8, he hardly gets any deliveries to bat with just some tail-enders left. If this move does work well going forward, it is going to be a great advantage for us. We have a batting line-up that boasts of hitting the big ball and are attacking players.With Sunil going all guns blazing, it just lengthens our batting line-up.”

Narine’s 37 came off just 18 balls with four boundaries and three sixes. He came like lightning and batted like thunder. Gambhir was mighty pleased having the best seat in the house. “I totally loved it. It was just the kind of start we needed,” he said.

Narine though was just happy that a bit of his captain’s purple patch with the bat was rubbing on him. “Every year you come here you always see Gambhir in the top run-getters’ list for KKR and being close to the Orange Cap,” Narine said. “Watching him bat, it always gives you confidence and makes the wickets look like it is not doing much. It is a good team spirit and great team effort and hopefully if we can continue batting like this, we can continue winning games.”  

But is Narine taking some batting tips from his captain and the likes of Robin Uthappa or Manish Pandey or a Yusuf Pathan? Narine grinned before Gambhir joined, “I think it should be the other way round as well. Some of the batsmen should be really proud of the way he batted. Look at some of the shots he played; I need to take tips from Narine to hit big sixes,” chuckled Gambhir.