Andre Russell is the king of the death overs. Few batsmen in the world strike fear into the heart of death bowlers quite like the Jamaican all-rounder, whose T20 prowess has been built on a remarkable ability to clear the ropes with powerful consistency. In the last three years, only two men – AB de Villiers and Eoin Morgan – have scored more quickly in the final overs of a T20 innings.

However, he’s had a quiet start to the 2021 IPL with the bat in hand. 5 (5) against Sunrisers Hyderabad in the opening match was followed by 9 (15) against Mumbai Indians, as Kolkata Knight Riders fell to an almost unbelievable defeat. While Russell is coming from a standing start, having played no cricket since a stretch with Colombo Kings back in December, he’s shown very little of the explosive form we expect from a man of his class.

And yet he’s still found a way to heavily influence games. In both of KKR’s matches, Russell has been Morgan’s designated death bowler, but it was in the Mumbai game where he most obviously came to the fore. In two overs at the end of the innings, Russell took five wickets for 15 runs, an almost unprecedented burst of wicket-taking threat; in the history of T20 cricket, only four other bowlers have taken a five-wicket haul bowling only two overs in the match.

Now, the Mumbai players Russell dismissed for this landmark were of varying quality. While he removed one of the greatest T20 hitters the game has ever seen in Kieron Pollard, he also came up against the rather more mercurial batting talents of Krunal Pandya, as well as the lower order operators Marco Jansen, Rahul Chahar, and Jasprit Bumrah.

Rather than the pedigree of batsmen he was faced with, what was rather more striking about the spell was that Russell had not been used in the innings at all until that point. He was given the clear and specific task of closing out the final overs. What caught the imagination of the fans and viewers was the whiplash from his complete uninvolvement, to his being directly responsible for dismissing half of the best T20 side in the world.

In terms of Russell’s recent deployment, it’s actually very much in line with how captains have approached his bowling; the start of last year saw a notable shift in Russell’s usage across the innings. More than ever before in his career, Russell’s bowling has been skewed to the end of the innings.

When your batting alone is enough to get you into any XI on the planet, minor tweaks to your bowling patterns probably aren’t at the top of your priority list. But for Russell, by adopting this around-the-wicket method from Christian, he’s been able to bowl more consistently in the death over phase, with obvious benefits for the rest of the bowling attack. He’s borrowed the bowling method – Eoin Morgan, and everyone else at KKR, will be hoping the knack for winning trophies follows just behind.