Kolkata Knight Riders and West Indies Sunil Narine has added another feather to his hat after becoming foreigner with the most appearances in the history of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2026. Narine etched his name in the history books after he was included in the Playing XI against Mumbai Indians.
Narine’s appearance against Mumbai Indians at the Wankhede Stadium is his 190th in the cash-rich league surpassing Kieron Pollard who had played 189 runs for MI. AB de Villiers is next in the list with 184 caps who has played for Delhi Daredevils (Now Delhi Capitals) and Royal challengers Bengaluru.
David Warner who has played for Daredevils and Sunrisers Hyderabad is fourth in the tally with 184 appearances. He has also led the Sunrisers to the trophy in 2016. Dwayne Bravo is next with 161 appearances and has played for Chennai Super Kings, Gujarat Lions and Mumbai Indians.
He was bought by KKR during the 2012 auction, interestingly, after a bidding war with MI for Rs. 3.4 crore and won the IPL title in his very first season. Later, the right-arm spinner added two more IPL titles to his name.
Narine has scored 1,780 runs in 122 innings, which includes one century and seven fifties. The 2024 season was one of the best for Narine with bat and ball as he scored 488 runs with a strike-rate of 180.74 and picked up 17 wickets at an average of 21.65.
Following this, he was retained by KKR for Rs. 12 Crore ahead of the IPL 2025 auction.
MI vs KKR
Kolkata Knight Riders began the IPL 2026 campaign against Mumbai Indians and started off in a brilliant manner with the bat. After being put into bat, KKR were off to a flying start with skipper Ajinkya Rahane providing a quick start. Sunil Narine didn’t open the innings for the side.
“We were looking to bowl, never seen this amount of grass at Wankhede. Preparations have been good, couple of camps in Kolkata and in Mumbai as well. Know that MI is a champion team and we’re looking forward to be playing against them. Just stay at the moment and don’t look at the past. A couple of injuries – we’re going with 6 batters and 5 bowlers. Four overseas players – Cameron Green, Finn Allen, Sunil Narine and Blessing Muzarabani,” Rahane said at the toss.
Kolkata Knight Riders (Playing XI): Finn Allen, Ajinkya Rahane(c), Cameron Green, Angkrish Raghuvanshi(w), Rinku Singh, Ramandeep Singh, Anukul Roy, Sunil Narine, Varun Chakaravarthy, Vaibhav Arora, Blessing Muzarabani
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