Sunil Narine, the mystery spinner from West Indies, who plays for the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), has been cleared to play in the Indian Premier League (IPL) season eight by the bowling review committee of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) on Sunday, reported the official IPL website.
Earlier, Narine was cleared by the International Cricket Council (ICC) but BCCI bowling review committee were not too happy with the results and thus they had asked Narine to undergo yet another test in Chennai under close supervision of bowling review committee comprised of Javagal Srinath, AV Jayaprakash and S Venkatraghavan.
KKR officials, quite obviously, were not happy about this decision and threatened to pull out of the upcoming tournament. Narine did join the side but skipped the practice sessions at Eden Gardens as he had to get a green signal from BCCI. Last year, when KKR reached the finals of the Champions League Twenty 20 and were about to face the Chennai Super Kings (CSK), Narine was banned from the international game for his bowling action. As a result, they suffered a defeat in the finals and MS Dhoni-led CSK lifted the trophy.
Narine holds the key to success for KKR so far and he has been super economical and has the knack of picking up wickets in all his spells. He is definitely the 'go to' man for KKR skipper Gautam Gambhir. This mystery spinner from the Caribbean's troubled batsmen across all teams and he also picked up 21 wickets last season at an economy rate of 6.35. The fans of KKR now have a reason to rejoice as their bowling spearhead will be seen twisting his arms against the Mumbai Indians in their first match at the Eden Gardens on Wednesday.
Honorary BCCI secretary Anurag Thakur said in a press release, "I am happy that we will witness Sunil Narine in action in the Pepsi IPL 8, since he is now cleared by the BCCI committee. We look forward to the opening match between Kolkata Knight Riders and Mumbai Indians on the 8th of April in Kolkata, which promises to provide an exciting start to the tournament."
