The name of ‘Andre – The Giant’ was quite popular in the WWE circuit. The 7″4′ French wrestler terrorized his opponents with his sheer physical stature.
However, in the field of cricket, it is West Indies’ all-rounder Andre Russell, who is the giant in the T20 circuit.
With his brute force, muscular abilities, and six-hitting prowesses, Russell climbed the ladder in franchise cricket and is now the marquee bid in auctions all over the glove.
After failing to feature for the Delhi Daredevils consistently, Andre Russell made it regularly into the XI for the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR). So much so, that the Jamaican was retained ahead of the mega-auctions before the 2018 edition of IPL.
Parallelly, England’s ace, Ben Stokes, has grown leaps and bounds in international cricket, headlining in each auction as the chief buy, bagging multi-million dollar contracts. Initially, he was bagged by the now-disbanded Rising Pune Supergiant and then purchased by Rajasthan Royals.
Cricketer-turned-broadcaster, Aakash Chopra was recently asked to choose between the two giants of T20 cricket i.e. to name the better all-rounder in the T20 format.
“#AakashVani Is Andre Russell a better all-rounder in T20s than Ben Stokes??,” asked one of the fans on Twitter. To which, Chopra replied by saying, “Andre andar, gend bahar (Andre in, ball out).”
Q: #AakashVani With Saliva ban for shining the ball, how this will impact cricket in post Covid Era?
– @Thatcricketguy2— Aakash Chopra (@cricketaakash) May 1, 2020
Russell has represented an array of teams in top franchises around the world namely the Caribbean Premier League (CPL), Big Bash League (BBL), Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) and Pakistan Super League (PSL).
There, he plays an integral part in the lineups for the Jamaica Tallawahs, Sydney Thunder, Rajshahi Royals, and Islamabad United.
In the 321 T20 games, he has piled up 5365 runs at a destructive strike rate of 171.29. Coming lower down the order, Russell-Muscle has a whopping tally of 425 sixes under his belt.
