Andre Russell, who was having a lukewarm outing in the IPL 2023 thus far, got back some of his form for Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) when they faced Delhi Capitals (DC) in Delhi on Thursday, April 20 in the ongoing IPL 2023 tournament.
However, his effort of 38* went in vain as KKR suffered a loss by 4 wickets to the home team, despite putting up a valiant fight after batting first and putting on 127 runs on the board. The top-scorer was Jason Roy with 43, while for DC, Ishant Sharma, Anrich Nortje, Akshar Patel and Kuldeep Yadav picked two wickets each.
In reply, David Warner’s 57 led the way for DC in the chase where the second-best score was Manish Pandey’s 21 and Akshar Patel 19* as they won by 4 wickets.
However, during the KKR innings, Kuldeep Yadav was on a hat-trick after he had dismissed Jason Roy and Anukul Roy. He could’ve become only the second bowler in IPL 2023 to take a hat-trick after Rashid Khan.
Kuldeep already had two hat-tricks in ODI cricket and was on course for his first in IPL as well, but Umesh Yadav played out the delivery to avoid the milestone. However, more than the hat-trick ball, it was Russell that got the internet talking courtesy his unexpected antics at the non-striker's end.
With Kuldeep ready to run in, Russell took guard at the non-striker’s end with his head facing towards deep midwicket. He was in his zone and didn’t paid attention to Kuldeep coming into bowl until the bowler was in his bowling stride.
Check out here:
Here is how the fans reacted to Andre Russell doing his own thing when Kuldeep was coming into bowl:
