IPL 2018: Five Biggest mistakes teams committed this week

2. The inability of RR new ball bowlers to dismiss Narine

When he first stepped into the arena of the IPL, Sunil Narine confounded almost every batsman out of their wits. Fast forward to 2018, the Caribbean cricketer has turned equally lethal with the bat. Promoted to open the batting for the KKR side in earlier seasons by the then-captain, Gautam Gambhir, the side has struck gold with Narine’s unusual power-hitting up the order and seems to be continuing with the tactic in IPL 2018.

Batting first on Wednesday (April 18), the Rajasthan Royals (RR) could only muster a score of 160 runs in their quota of 20 overs, which was understandably 10-20 runs short of what they would’ve been hoping for. However, what really crushed the chances of Rajasthan was the quickfire knock worth 35 runs off 25 balls from the willow of Narine up the order. It effectively lowered the required run rate for the KKR and from thereon, winning seemed like child’s play for the Dinesh Karthik-led side.

Although RR is not the only side that’s been left bamboozled by Narine, it was absolutely crucial for them to have dismissed him early in the innings to have had the slightest shot at winning the match. The fourth over which saw Dhawal Kulkarni getting smashed for a hat-trick of boundaries from Narine revealed the inability on the part of Rajasthan to get the mystery cricketer off the pitch.