Surrey add Sunil Narine to the ranks for Vitality Blast

Surrey County Cricket Club on Wednesday announced that they had secured the services of Trinidad and Windies spinner Sunil Narine for this year’s Vitality Blast. Narine will join the club following his stint at the Indian Premier League with the Kolkata Knight Riders and be available for the entirety of the premier English T20 tournament.

“I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to play for Surrey in the Vitality Blast this year; one of the few competitions around the world I’ve not experienced in my career,” said Narine on joining the side as one of its two overseas singings for the season. “The stint I enjoyed with Oval Invincibles in 2021 gave me a taste of how unique playing in front of a packed Kia Oval audience really is. My aim is to entertain as much as possible this year and hopefully ensure the Club challenges for the trophy,” he added.


The 33-year-old comes with a plethora of experience on the back of as many as 51 T20Is and 391 T20s. The mystery spinner has 429 wickets in his kitty in this particular format of the game.


Surrey’s Director of Cricket Alec Stewart said, “We’re very pleased Sunil will be joining us for this year’s Vitality Blast. His unique skills as a bowler and ability to bat anywhere in the order make him a very exciting proposition in any T20 side,” adding, “As a proven winner in this format, his experience of international cricket and leagues around the world will be an invaluable asset. I look forward to seeing him perform in a Surrey shirt this summer.”


The 20th edition of England’s flagship T20 tournament will kick-start on May 25, 2022, when reigning champions Kent Spitfires will host Somerset.

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Can’t put the game in Australia’s lap: Ramiz Raja on Rawalpindi pitch

Pakistan Cricket Board chairman Ramiz Raja has put out a detailed clarification over the Rawalpindi pitch fiasco, where teams could only manage to take 14 wickets in five days of play. A joy kill of a pitch that put a huge dampener on Australia’s return to Pakistan after a gap of 24 years, Raja was at the centre of the wrath from the Pakistan fans. The anger was built due to Raja’s promise from his day of joining where he had promised world class sporting pitches all over Pakistan. In a detailed clarification, the PCB Chairman stated that fans need to understand that he could not just hand over the game to Australia and the pitch was built to nullify a strong Australian pace attack. "We need to beat Australia, and we need to prepare our strategy accordingly, and the strategy is for low-bouncy tracks where reverse can happen, where LBW and bowled will be in play, where our spinners can show their performance, and where the batters, who have grown up on low-bounce pitches, can utilise that advantage,” Raja said. He argued that the pitch needed to suit the batters to help them get into form and the fans should hold their horses because a lot of cricket is still to be played. "So when your opening batting pair and bowling pair are both disturbed and raw, you can't take chances. Our leg spinner wasn't ready, Yasir Shah was unfit, so we got on the field with an under-resourced 15, and Australia, don't forget, are a global powerhouse, and were coming here after winning the Ashes. We respect their talent. So we couldn't go into experimental mode so early, keeping our strengths in mind.” However, he agreed that the game was not a good advertisement for cricket and the pitches will be better going forward in the series. But he pretty much made it clear that there will be little to no advantage to the pace bowlers, and the tracks will remain low and slow to suit the home spinners. "I want to say again that it wasn't a good advertisement, but keep your morale high and keep watching. It's a big achievement to have brought so many great Australian players here, and on an individual level there's a lot to look forward to, from both the Pakistan team and the Australian team. I hope that this series, going forward, will become more interesting, but only one match is done, so don't jump the gun, there's a lot of cricket to be played." On the matter of pitch rehaul across Pakistan Raja made it clear that it takes almost half a year to prepare pitches, and the work could only be started once the 2021-22 season was over. He asked the fans and lovers of Pakistan cricket to be patient and track the development as time goes on.