IPL 2016: Gautam Gambhir believes Sunil Narine will only get better as the tournament progresses

Kolkata Knight Riders skipper Gautam Gambhir is extremely happy about the way this year’s IPL tournament has panned out for his mystery spinner Sunil Narine. Narine, who is making a comeback after his action was found to be legal, has picked up 3 wickets in the 3 games he has played.

The West Indies spinner, who had to remodel his action, earned a lot of praise from his skipper, “He’s shown a lot of character. The toughest thing for a bowler is when he remodels his action and comes to a format like Twenty20 and when he knows that the people would be looking to go after him. It’s not like Test cricket, where he will have time,”.

Praising the spinner, Gambhir also added, “In Twenty20 he will be targeted and brought under pressure. The way he has handled himself in the last three games has been unbelievable. He’s a strong boy mentally.”

According to the KKR captain, the spinner will only get better as the tournament progresses and he is hopeful that they will see the best of Sunil Narine in the coming weeks.

Talking about the domestic tournament, the southpaw believes that the Indian Premier League has done wonders for Indian cricket, especially the youngsters. According to him, the youth brigade do not fear anything now.

Gambhir said, “When you play against the best and with the best, you learn a lot of things and the fear factor goes out of the window as well. It’s been good for Indian cricket and it’s a good platform for the Twenty20 format.’’

The KKR opener also believes that the IPL has immensely helped in increasing a pool of players for Indian cricket and pointed out, “There have been so many players picked through the IPL. It has increased the pool of players. It’s great exposure as well. When you play against quality players and when you get into the international side, you don’t fear them that much as you would have if you haven’t faced them.”

Talking about the speculation of a possible comeback to the Indian national side after his performances in the IPL, Gambhir isn’t thinking about the Indian side and his focus is to do well for the KKR and win the title.

Given the way the talented left-hander has batted in the IPL so far, he surely stakes a claim to make a comeback to the national side. With the amount of experience he possesses, Gambhir surely can solve India’s opening woes across all the formats of the game.