5 attacking field placements in IPL history

5. KXIP vs KKR (IPL 2013)

While the above aggressive field placements had helped different captains to win crucial games, in this case, it was merely the bowler ( KKR’s Sunil Narine) who fetched an IPL hat-trick. By deciding to bowl first, the KKR bowlers had massively downsized KXIP’s batting, as the Punjab team had scored 70 runs for 3 wickets in their first 10 overs.

With Narine extensively controlling the middle passage of the play, the West Indian bowler was brought in for the 15 over and by the end of it, Narine had cleaned up the KXIP’s middle-order batting through his hat-trick. His first wicket of David Hussey came on the third ball of the over, as the Australian batsman had nicked Narine’s off-break to the wicket-keeper Manvinder Bisla. The second wicket of Azhar Mahmood was the biggest scalp as with his variation of the knuckleball, Sunil Narine himself received a simple catch.

Now with Narine’s variations receiving some help from the pitch, the KKR skipper brought in a close field that had two slips and a silly point. However, with the first two dismissals involving some spin, Sunil Narine then bowled a straight ball to Gurkeerat Singh which went on to break the top of the off-stump. Gurkeerat anticipated to be an off-break and played that wrong line. However, the pressure of having a strong off-side field also propelled him to go for a flick. In the end, regardless of Narine’s hat-trick, KXIP won the game by a mere margin of 4 runs.