Retired West Indies spinner, Sunil Narine produced an exhilarating batting effort that inspired Kolkata Knight Riders to a 106-run win against Delhi Capitals in the Indian Premier League at the Reddy Stadium.
Batting first, the 35-year-old Trinidadian led KKR to the second-highest team total in the history of the Twenty20 tournament of 272 for 7. He scored 85 from 39 deliveries, cracking seven fours and seven sixes.
Narine followed up with a tidy spell of 1 for 29 from his allotted four overs and pacer Vaibhav Arora and leg-spinner Varun Chakravarthy shared six wickets.
KKR were 88 for 1 at the end of the Power Play, and Angkrish Raghuvanshi shared 104 for the second wicket with Narine.
Mitchell Marsh got Narine caught in the 13th over, and Nortje got Raghuvanshi caught for 54 off 27 balls, which included five fours and three sixes.
West Indies all-rounder Andre Russell scored 41 off 19 balls inclusive of four fours and three sixes and put on 56 for the fourth wicket with India batsman Shreyas Iyer before he was dismissed in the final over.
In reply, the Capitals were dismissed for 166 in 17.2 overs as they had a shaky start when they slumped to 51 for 4 at the end of the Power Play after Arora and Australia left-arm pacer Mitchell Starc carved up their top order batting.
India wicketkeeper-batsman Rishabh Pant produced 55 off 25 balls, and South Africa batsman Tristan Stubbs supported with 54 off 32 balls. Their partnership of 93 for the fifth wicket carried the Capitals past 100.
The dismissal of Stubbs in the 15th over triggered a collapse and Capitals lost their last four wickets for seven with 16 balls to spare.
The win was the third in their three matches for KKR and pushed them to the top of the 10-team table with six points; while the Capitals are now ninth on two points with one win from three matches.
