West Indian hard-hitting all-rounder Andre Russell believes that the Dhaka Dynamites is a good franchise and has the right balance and experience in their ranks to put up a good fight in the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) 2018-19, which will get underway on Saturday (January 5).
Besides Russell, there are a lot of big names from the cricket world in the Dynamites side, who reached the final of the T20 tournament last year, likes of Sunil Narine, Kieron Pollard and Rovman Powell, Rubel Hossain, Nurul Hasan, Shuvagata Hom and Andrew Birch, while Shakib Al Hasan will be once again leading the side in the coming BPL.
Russell told reporters ahead of the BPL opener on Friday, “I think we have a good team. Our expectation is still to win. But it's a new set of guys and I have played with most of these guys before. New tournament and New Year too, so we have to start on the right foot and see and where we go from there. We are a good team. We have good experienced players. So at the end of the day, we just have to make sure we put all the experience into good use.”
The swashbuckling all-rounder is highly impressed with Shakib’s leadership skills as he has already played with the ace Bangladesh all-rounder at Kolkata Knight Riders and Jamaica Tallawahs.
Andre continued, “Shakib is a very good skipper. I have played with him at KKR and Jamaica Tallawahs as well. He plays hard and at times, he may get grumpy and that's how the captains are. We are all professionals and once we make an error, the skipper is going to react hard. As a captain, I know he will do his best to lead the team.”
Meanwhile, the West Indian also believes that the coming 2018-19 edition will be highly competitive with the presence of foreign stars like AB de Villiers, David Warner, Steven Smith, Chris Gayle, Evin Lewis, Shahid Afridi, Alex Hales and many others.
He further added on the same, “It's going to be competitive. Those guys bring something special to the tournament. At the end of the day, they are human beings but they are special (players), especially AB de Villiers and David Warner. We all know how destructive they can be. We just have to make sure that we get them out as soon as possible when we play against them. The longer Warner and AB de Villiers bat, more the damage they can do. Playing against these guys we have to plan a bit harder and more technical. But these guys are good for this tournament.”
Russell signed off by saying, “I am not trying to put too much attention to the other teams. I think our focus will be on ourselves (about) what we can do. Obviously, there are some really good teams out there and there is no easy game. But our focus will be on ourselves and what we can do to try and win games.”
(With Cricbuzz Inputs)
