Moeen Ali knew that he would debut for Kolkata Knight Riders only on Wednesday morning, replacing the injured Sunil Narine.
The 37-year-old England all-rounder ensured the team didn’t miss the off-spin of the West Indian against the Rajasthan Royals at the Baraspara Cricket Stadium. He took two for 23 and, with fellow-tweaker Varun Chakaravarthy, set up a comfortable chase, spearheaded by Quinton de Kock with his brilliant 97 not out.
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“I came on before him, so my job was to try to bowl tight as I can and thought maybe he could build a bit of pressure as well or get the wicket,” Moeen said shortly after KKR won by eight wickets. “I am used to bowling with somebody who is better than me and has more mystery than me. So my job there is to bowl as tight as I can, and hopefully, that builds pressure for that person to get wickets.”
Varun did get wickets. Moeen sounded happy for him.
“He is a brilliant bowler,” he said. “He improved so much in the last two or three years. It was amazing to bowl with somebody like that.”
With a lot of talk going around about breaching the 300 mark in the IPL, Moeen said it was nice to play on wickets that were kinder to the bowlers. “It is great to have these kinds of games between those big (high-scoring) games,” he said. “India is a great place to bat, but on these wickets, you are not going to get 300 – you would probably get 200.”