Despite his successive failures leading into the game against Chennai Super Kings (CSK) on Wednesday (October 7), Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) didn't drop their veteran cricketer Sunil Narine in Abu Dhabi. Instead, the team found a new role for him in the batting line-up, trusted his skillset with the ball to come to the fore. 

And skipper Dinesh Karthik said they recognise Narine's importance to the side and will continue to back him. Karthik's words came after Narine played a useful cameo of 9-ball 17 on his demotion to No.4 and delivered a fine spell of 1/31 in KKR's 10-run win over CSK in Match 21 of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2020.

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"There are some key players for every team. Narine is one for us. Least we can do is back him. 2-3 poor games, doesn't matter," said Karthik at the post-match presentation ceremony, as quoted by Cricbuzz. 

Batting first on a surface which slowed down considerably as the match progressed, KKR posted a fighting total of 167 all out, with Rahul Tripathi (81) playing the stand-out knock on the night for his team without any significant support at the other end. 

Karthik heaped praise on Tripathi and also explained the rationale behind the rejigged batting order. 

"Good to see Tripathi do the job at the top. Good thing about Russ(Andre Russell) is he's very versatile. He can bat slightly up, slightly down."

"Our batting is very fluid. I started at three, today I batted at seven. The way those guys batted at the start, they batted very well," said Karthik. 

The captain was pleased that the use of his spinners at the back end of the innings worked wonders. Apart from Narine, Varun Chakravarthy (1/28) also bowled very well and helped restrict CSK to just 157/5. 

"Back end I've a lot of trust in Sunil and Varun, (and it) paid off," said Karthik.