Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) mystery spinner Sunil Narine expressed his gratitude for the Indian Premier League franchise which retained the West Indies superstar ahead of the IPL 2022 mega-auction.
Sunil Narine, who made his IPL debut with KKR in 2012, was retained for Rs 6 crore along with fellow West Indian Andre Russell (Rs 12 crore), young Indian opener Venkatesh Iyer (Rs 8 crore) and mystery spinner Varun Chakravarthy (Rs 8 crore) for the 2022 season.
Narine is KKR’s most successful bowler with 143 wickets from 134 games and is the seventh-most successful bowler in the league’s history.
He played an integral part in KKR’s title-winning runs in 2012 and 2014 under Gautam Gambhir and was also instrumental in their campaign last year with 16 wickets as the team finished runners-up to Chennai Super Kings in the UAE.
Elaborating on bond with the Knight Riders, Narine called the team his “second home” and hopes to continue bringing laurels for the two-time champions.
“There’s no other place I’d like to be than KKR because I have played all my cricket here.
“I would love to continue representing the franchise It’s a home away from home, my second home. So, I hope it can continue,” Narine has said in a short film “The Comeback King” that was released on Thursday.
Narine also opened up on the controversy surrounding his bowling action, for which he was reported first in the 2014 Champions League T20 and then again in IPL 2015 and 2020. The 33-year-old has had to change his action multiple times, as a result.
“It (being called for illegal bowling action in 2020) was tough! But at the end of the day, cricket was never easy for me. I had to work for everything I have. So, it was just like another stepping stone where I had to dig deep, work hard and come out on top,” Narine said.
