Andre Russell is an IPL superstar on the decline: should he go the Pollard way?

IPL 2024, KKR’s opening match: Andre Russell smashed seven sixes in 25 balls. The carnage at Eden Gardens brought in a rush of deja vu, a flicker of hope.

Why deja vu? Five years before that, he’d lit up the same venue, against the same opponents – SRH – in what was also the second match of the season. Hope, because 2019 turned out to be the most destructive all-round campaign ever seen.

510 runs at a strike-rate of 204, 11 wickets at 26. No one in the history of T20 cricket had done the double of 500 runs (at a strike rate of 200) and 10 wickets in a single tournament.

Russell backed it up with a 19-ball 41 as KKR piled up 272 against DC, fuelling belief that a 2019 encore might actually be on the cards. Instead, across his next 13 IPL innings, he hasn’t managed a single 30-plus score.

This season in particular has been worse. From six innings, Russell has managed only 55 runs with four single-digit scores, averaging 9.16 and striking at 119. He’s never had worse numbers in any IPL season where he’s batted more than twice. Even the odd match-winning cameo has remained elusive.

The KKR management has tried to underplay the issue and point out their systemic batting failure. Following the defeat at home against Gujarat Titans, a game where Russell’s 15-ball 21 was his highest score of the season, KKR mentor Dwayne Bravo defended the star all-rounder: “We as a team didn’t bat properly. That’s just the reality. Russell isn’t the only one struggling right now.

“When Russell walks in to bat, every time the run rate is at 14 or 15 runs per over. Work needs to be done at the top to give him a chance to finish off games like he has been doing all these years for KKR.

“Yes, leg-spinners got him out a few times, but I don't think that is a big concern. We just need to bat better (at the top) to allow our finishers the chance to finish games.”

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While it’s true that the KKR batting has not been consistent – their top six has the second-lowest average (25.48) after CSK’s 24.55 – Russell has had enough chances to make an impact on games.

Out of the three times he has batted in the first innings, twice he has come in by the end of the 15th over; and only once out of the three run-chases has he come in with the required rate above 14.

In KKR’s only win out of those six games, Russell had the least work to do, coming out with three balls left.

By contrast, in 2019, Russell often entered run-chases with similar or tougher asking rates – 11.86, 15.47, 8.84, and 16.52 – and almost always delivered, winning three of those games and nearly pulling off the fourth with a 25-ball 65.

Now, Russell’s high-risk-high-reward game comes with an inherent expectation of high variance in output. The consistency he was able to achieve in 2019 was always going to be unsustainable and it’s unfair to hold him up to those standards six years down the line especially when he’s on the wrong side of 35. Even with all those considerations, though, his batting output has completely nosedived this year across all T20 cricket, not just the IPL.

From 17 innings with the bat, he averages 13.50 despite three not outs, with a high score of 37. His strike rate has been 136.95, and has only hit a six every 8.6 balls – his lowest frequency of six-hitting since 2013. Russell’s last T20 of 2024, against England, was the last time he hit four or more sixes in a game. In the IPL so far, he has hit four sixes in six outings combined.

The very foundation of Russell’s game is built around six-hitting. He is one of the pioneers of modern-day brutish-batsmanship. Even during previous periods of relatively poor form, like in 2022 and 2023, he was hitting a six every 7.4 and 6.9 balls. Each time he walked out to bat, his bulging biceps and big forearms seemed like separate entities of their own, instilling a very legitimate fear among bowlers that their margin for error is minimal and Russell’s much bigger.

The size and strength of those muscles hasn’t reduced, but the fear they used to induce is fading.

It could be a natural product of age and subtly deteriorating eyesight. Batters like Russell, who play across the line more than through it, and step away from the ball more than they get behind it, depend more on their hand-eye coordination than batters who have rock-solid techniques to fall back on. At 37, that aspect of the game only declines.

Compounding his natural decline is the fact that Russell has been one of the most heavily planned-for batters in T20 cricket, a reality he acknowledged after the knock against SRH last year.

“I just try to react to whatever comes my way,” he said. “Over the last two years, bowlers have been bowling exceptionally well to me. They plan very carefully when they are bowling to me. So I have been digging runs out in the back end and I am still figuring out how to score, because they are going to have their plans, and I realise everyone is coming to me with a plan. So I have to be ready.”

His batting struggles aside, Russell’s bowling is still going strong (and under the radar). This IPL season, he has picked up seven wickets in five innings with a wicket every nine balls. Overall, in the history of the IPL, no bowler, with more than 30 wickets, has struck at a better rate than Russell’s 14.4.

Despite his elite breakthrough-making skills, Russell has been tellingly under-utilised so far. He’s sent down only 63 deliveries in the first nine games of this season – averaging seven balls per match – his second-lowest in an IPL season after 2023, when he wasn’t fully fit. It could be precautionary on KKR’s part. But there’s a chance that it might just be a mandatory requirement to manage his workload.

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There’s still at least five more games to go for Russell this season. That’s more than enough time for him to flip the narrative around. In case he is not able to, conversations would need to be had.

Russell has previously expressed his desire to retire at KKR. “Just like players in big leagues like English Premier League, or the Basketball guys (at NBA) retiring from the sport say ‘okay, this is my last game’ and they wave goodbye to the crowd – I imagine I would love to be at KKR until that moment in my career,” he had said, back in 2020. Retirement might not be anywhere near Russell’s radar right now, but by the time the next IPL rolls around, he’ll be closing in on 38, and the T20 World Cup would also have been over.

Russell’s country-mate Kieron Pollard gave a lesson in timing when he announced his retirement from the IPL after an underwhelming season in 2022, aged 34. He has since taken up a coaching role with Mumbai Indians and plays in other, less intense leagues around the world. It wouldn’t be the worst idea if Russell chose to follow a similar route (unless of course, he finds his spark back, in which case, why bother).

Outside of the IPL and T20Is, Russell played 35 T20s across the ILT20, Bangladesh Premier League, The Hundred, Caribbean Premier League, and Major League Cricket last year. He doesn’t have a Hundred gig this season, but would have enough high-quality game time available even if decides to stop playing in the IPL by next year.

Russell’s departure – whenever it happens – would be a massive loss for KKR, but perhaps more so sentimentally than on the field. In the likes of Rinku and Ramandeep Singh, they now have more than decent finishers who’ve already proven themselves. His absence would be felt more with the ball, but relying on an injury-prone fast bowler nearing 40 is perhaps not a strategy the third-most successful franchise in the IPL would want to follow anyway.

Leaving at the right time is an art very few top-level athletes have mastered. If Russell is able to leave while people still ask “why” rather than “when”, it would provide a classy finishing touch to a career where timing often took a backseat.

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