West Indies' hard-hitting all-rounder Andre Russell opened up about his poor form with the bat in the recent Indian Premier League (IPL) 2020 in the UAE.
Russell was the most valuable player in the IPL 2019 but had a miserable IPL 2020 campaign as the all-rounder could only manage 117 runs and picked 6 wickets in 10 matches for Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR).
The all-rounder, who is currently playing in the Lanka Premier League (IPL), has revealed that he changed his stance, technique, and trigger movement, but nothing went his way when he batted for KKR in the IPL 2020 and it was probably because of the life in bio-bubble.
Russell told a Jamaica-based TV network SportsMax: “I changed my stance, I changed my technique, I changed my trigger movement, all these things I changed just to score runs in IPL and nothing was going my way. The pressure was real. I'm a tough player, and I didn't know I could actually feel what happened during this year's IPL. And I just wanted everything to go quickly behind me.”
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The 32-year-old further that the bio-secure bubble life wasn’t easy at all and took a toll on him as he had just come from the Caribbean Premier League (CPL) bio-bubble and then had to immediately join another bubble in Abu Dhabi for IPL 2020.
He added, “Coming from a bubble in Trinidad [for CPL], come straight into Abu Dhabi [in IPL], days on days, you can only go to practice, and come back to the hotel and your room. You can close your eyes and go to the bathroom, but there is nowhere else to go.”
Russell also described the bio-secure bubble life as a prison, saying he immediately after IPL 2020 went to Dubai to “loosen himself up” before traveling to Sri Lanka for the ongoing LPL 2020.
He signed off by saying, “I get out of the bubble. I go to Dubai, have a good time, drink, party, loosen myself. I feel alive. When you feel like you're coming out of prison, it's like. I've never been to prison, but this lockdown actually felt 'oh my god, I can't do whatever I want to do'.”
(With India Today Inputs)
