Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) suffered a narrow defeat by three wickets in the match against Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) in the ongoing IPL 2022. It meant RCB got their first points for the season and now have their campaign up and running in IPL 2022.
However, KKR had a lot to be happy about since at one stage they looked totally out of the game after managing just 128 batting first at the DY Patil Stadium. However, their bowlers came to the party as they kept RCB batters under pressure and took the game to the last over.
However, one area of concern for the Shreyas Iyer-led team is the fitness of their all-rounder Andre Russell. Though he top-scored with the bat, making 25 runs, his bowling performance was underwhelming. He conceded 36 runs in just 2.2 overs, allowing RCB to score at will.
He seemed a bit jittery on the field and was seen having some trouble with his right shoulder, giving major concerns to his franchise.
Former New Zealand bowler Simon Doull talked in detail about Russell's outings and warned KKR that Russell was an “injury waiting to happen.”
He further suggested to the KKR that they can use the West Indies star purely as a batter to try and manage his workload given his fragile fitness.
“You'd like to think that you get four overs out of Venkatesh Iyer, Andre Russell, and even a couple of round arms from Nitish Rana if you had to. Most teams are very similar. Very few teams in this competition have five out-and-out bowlers -- one or two who can bat. It is very difficult to find in T20 cricket. So they've got four genuine bowlers, and even Pat Cummins will come back, they still got four very good bowlers,” said Doull on Cricbuzz.
"Chakravarthy will have more good nights than bad. But if you can't rely on 4 overs from Russell, Iyer, and Rana, there's something wrong. I know everybody is worried as soon as Andre Russell dives but you can't play the game like that. If they're worried about it, don't play him. Or don't bowl him at all. Just tell Venkatesh Iyer and Nitish Rana that you two are going to be our fifth bowlers."
“You just hope Russell wins you three games with the bat. In this competition, you are asking every player to win 1-2-3 games. So that might be the way forward. He's just struggling with the ball. And his body has such an enormous muscle. He might be truly over 105-108 kilos; just that enormous mass going through that stress from time to time is not easy. He is an injury waiting to happen, which is a shame because I love watching all of his trades.”
KKR would look to fix the issues with their fifth bowling option and will need to take a serious look at how they intend to use Russell. The Knight Riders play their next match on April 1 against Punjab Kings at the Wankhede Stadium.
