New Delhi,sept 8
In April, during an Instagram live chat, all-rounder Siddhesh Lad had said that he would rather bat against Jasprit Bumrah than bowl to Andre Russell. Now, Lad, a member of the Kolkata Knight Riders this year, is aware that at some point he will have to bowl against the big-hitting West Indies batsman, albeit in the nets, but the 28-year-old reckons that if given an opportunity, he would rather find a way out of it.“I will have to bowl to him in the nets at some stage now obviously,” Lad told kkr.in. “I have already faced Bumrah in the nets and in domestic matches. So, I somewhat know what to expect. With Russell, I have seen how destructive he can get. I have never bowled to him. So, I think it is the uncertainty of the whole thing that made me say that I don’t want to bowl to Andre Russell.” Russell had a brilliant season with KKR in 2019, winning matches out of extraordinarily tough situations for the team. He scored 510 runs at an average of 56.66 with a strike-rate of 204.81, which included four half-centuries. KKR’s think tank headed by coach Brendon McCullum and mentor David Hussey are pondering over the idea of promoting Russell up the order to make maximum use of the all-rounder’s big-hitting prowess. In fact, Hussey feels that with adequate balls at his disposal, Russell can well go on to score a double hundred in T20 cricket which nobody has ever achieved.“If it benefits the team and helps us win games of cricket, why not? If that means Andre Russell comes in at three and bats 60 balls, he might actually make a double hundred. Anything can happen with Dre Russ,” Hussey said in a news conference.“A fantastic player, he is probably almost the heartbeat of the team as well. We’ve actually got really a well-balanced team… Anyone can bat in any different position. But if it benefits the team, why not, why can’t he bat up the list.”
