IPL 2019: Business As Usual For Us, Says Stephen Fleming On Plans To Stop Andre Russell
Credits: Twitter

For every team that is playing against Kolkata Knight Riders, the biggest threat is Andre Russell. The allrounder is in a murderous mood with the bat at the moment. Almost every bowler who has come to bowl at him in the ongoing Indian Premier League has been taken to the cleaners. So far, he has amassed a staggering 207 runs in just 77 balls. While no other batsman has so far hit more than 12 sixes, Russell has hit an unbelievable 22 in just four innings.  He has scored at an average of over 103 and a strike-rate of over 268. In five games so far, Russell has walked away with the Man of the Match award thrice.

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Last week, he had powered Kolkata Knight Riders to a miraculous win against Royal Challengers Bangalore.  Kolkata Knight Riders would have feared the worst when their skipper Dinesh Karthik departed on the final ball of the 17th over, leaving the team reeling at 153 for 5 while chasing 205.  The game was slightly drifting towards Royal Challengers before Andre Russell hit three sixes in the 18th over to bring down the equation to 30 from the last two overs.

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In the next over, he hit Tim Southee for 4 sixes and a four to collect 29 runs before Shubman Gill scored the winning runs. Russell remained unbeaten 48 off just 13 balls with the help of seven sixes.

IPL 2019: Business As Usual For Us, Says Stephen Fleming On Plans To Stop Andre Russell
Andre Russell (Credits: BCCI)

Up against Knight Riders and Russell is Chennai Super Kings. However, their head coach Stephen Flemings is not just focusing on Russell alone and is instead focussed on chalking up a plan against the whole team.

“Possibly, there are a couple of challenges. One is you ignore the other six (batsmen). And in a team that has (Chris) Lynn, (Dinesh) Karthik and (Robin) Uthappa you do that at your own peril. We’ve got to be careful we don’t focus overtly on Russell,” he said at the press conference.

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“Even though he has been so dynamic, there’s still good work done by the other players. So, again, I stress it doesn’t change our preparation to focus on one or two players, but we’re acutely aware of how dangerous these players are so, it’s business as usual for us,” Fleming said.

Chennai Super Kings will host the Knight Riders on Tuesday. Both the teams have won four of their first games this season and are occupying the top two positions in the points table.

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