Knights Sunil Narine & Gautam Gambhir not good enough for King Gony

This should have been Sunil Narine’s day and the Kolkata Knight Riders should have been celebrating but such is the nature of Twenty20 cricket that unlikely heroes rise when least expected. At the PCA Stadium in Mohali it was the turn of Manpreet Singh Gony,who made a name of himself in the first season of the IPL with Chennai Super Kings,to enhance his reputation – first as a hitter of sixes and then as a medium-pacer.

By the end of the 15th over,Narine had well and truly wrapped up the game for the Knight Riders by taking the first hat-trick of this season of the IPL. The spinner’s variety is difficult to pick for most batsmen and the Trinidadian kept the batsmen guessing again – David Hussey was bowled trying to cut an off-spinner,Azhar Mahmood was deceived by a straighter one and Narine didn’t spill the leading edge offered,while Gurkeerat Singh was bowled by the carrom ball. In this particular over Narine had conceded just three runs and Punjab fell to 99 for six with five overs to go.

But those who have followed Gony’s career closely knew that he presented a threat. During district games and practice games,Gony has gained the reputation because of his big-hitting ability and on Tuesday he cared little for reputation as he knocked off 42 runs from just 18 balls,a knock that included three sixes. Of these two were off Narine in the penultimate over of the innings in which 19 were scored.

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Gony was hit for 11 runs in his first over but came back strongly to give away just seven runs in his next three and also account for the wicket of Knight Riders’ skipper Gautam Gambhir. Gony’s third and fourth overs to Manoj Tiwary and Yusuf Pathan respectively leaked just one run each,both off wides. Once Gambhir was out,the rest of the batsmen fell to a bout of nerves and smart bowling to fall four runs short.

Brief scores: Kings XI Punjab 157/9 in 20 overs (M Gony 42,M Singh 41,S Narine 3/33,J Kallis 3/24); KKR 153/9 in 20 overs (G Gambhir 60,E Morgan 47,A Mahmood 3/21,P Kumar 2/26)