West Indies all-rounder Andre Russell once again asserted that for him, playing for the West Indies team always comes first, as he clears the air about his absence from the New Zealand tour and playing the Lanka Premier League 2020.
Russell had captured headlines on the eve of the T20I series after Phil Simmons, the West Indies head coach, said it was "news" to him that Russell was playing for the Colombo Kings in the LPL.
The all-rounder said that having initially turned down the offer to tour New Zealand he had tried to reverse his decision, but was told by the chief selector Roger Harper that was "too late" since the squad had already been picked.
"Playing for the West Indies comes first for me. And the energy and effort that I put out playing for West Indies, I wouldn't do it playing anywhere else. Sometimes people don't understand what a player like myself goes through with niggles and all of those things. But they're just going to judge, and it's easy for them to judge,” Russell said to SportsMax, a Jamaica-based TV network.
"Did everything, nothing worked": Andre Russell opens up on his poor IPL 2020 campaign
Russell, who was in the conversation with Wayne Lewis, the secretary of West Indies Players Association, who doubles up as an expert on SportsMax, revealed that Harper had contacted him in October while he was away for the IPL in UAE about the New Zealand tour.
But he told Harper, the chief selector and West Indies white-ball captain Kieron Pollard, who was also in UAE for the IPL, that he was not in the right "headspace" coping with living in the bubble.
"The chairman reached out to me while I was playing IPL, but before that, I was talking to Pollard. And Pollard asked me and said: "Russ, I'm not forcing you, I'm just asking you: "Are you coming to New Zealand?” Russell said.
Russell replied, "Yeah, man, I would want to come, but right now, Polly, my headspace is messed up. I'm struggling, I'm not getting no runs, all of this."
Russell also said that the combination of the toll of bio-bubble life and his hamstring injury resulted in him deciding not to go to New Zealand.
“He [Harper] reached out to me a couple of days after when I'd played two games after that. We won one of them, we lost one, I struggled in both games. And as a big player, with the team depending on you and all of that, it's pressure. So I was saying no, I can't go to New Zealand like this - I need to at least take a break from cricket, get out the bubble after IPL, go [to] Dubai, go out, just loosen myself a bit and clear my head," Russell added.
However, he reversed his decision after talking to teammates Shimron Hetmyer and Keemo Paul, who revealed that there were fewer restrictions in New Zealand. But it was too late for him to be included in the squad now.
Meanwhile, with the T20 World Cup 2021 on the horizon, Russell knows Harper's panel will want to have a good look at him if he is in contention for the tournament, despite him playing just twice in T20Is for West Indies since 2018.
“I'm 32 years old now, I've been injury-prone for the last couple of years, struggling with a knee injury, and having hamstring injuries and stuff like that. I don't want anyone to say that the next time Andre Russell puts on the West Indies colors, he's going to get injured.
"Now, I've got smart up in terms of how to manage my body. I will allow a ball to go for four and try to make it up with the bat, but when you're playing for your country, you want to make sure that the body is 100%,” Russell signed off.
(SportsMax/ ESPNCricinfo inputs)
