Courtesy: KKR/IPL
West Indies cricketer Sunil Narine is one of the best players in the history of the T20I format, and his association with Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) in the Indian Premier League (IPL) has been a long standing one. Ahead of the IPL 2025 mega auction, KKR retained Sunil Narine as one of the six players, including the likes of Rinku Singh, Varun Chakravarthy, Harshit Rana, Ramandeep Singh, and Andre Russell, who were all major reasons for their third title triumph last season earlier this year.
Sunil Narine joined KKR in the IPL 2012 season, picking up 24 wickets in 15 matches, to help them win their first title in history, following which he was also a key part in their second title victory two years later, taking 21 wickets in 16 matches. After three straight seasons with more than 20 wickets each, the wicket-taking prowess of the right-arm off spinner hasn’t quite been at the same level in the IPL in the last decade, but his exceptional economy rate season after season, along with the batting exploits from time to time, has more than made up for it.
After being one of the highest paid players in the KKR setup for a long time, Sunil Narine was given a contract of INR 6 Crore only in the last couple of seasons in the IPL. But his incredible performances with the bat and ball in the IPL 2024, which helped KKR win the league for the third time in their history, the team management have given him a big pay raise for the upcoming IPL 2025 season, retaining him for INR 12 Crore.
As the joint-second highest paid player for the 2025 season of the IPL, alongside Varun Chakravarthy and Andre Russell, the expectation from KKR team management and their fans will be quite high on Sunil Narine, to deliver the goods next year. In terms of bowling, if the right-arm off spinner bowls four overs in all the 14 league stage matches, not including playoffs and beyond, in the IPL 2025, which adds up to 336 balls, then he will earn INR 3,57,142 for every delivery to the batter in the tournament.
This statistic doesn’t include the pay day for every run potentially scored by Sunil Narine in 14 matches in the IPL 2025 with his ability to strike it big in the power play stage and beyond.
