IPL 2022: 'Russell muscle', Twitter in awe of Andre Russell's whirlwind knock against PBKS

Kolkata Knight Riders got back to winning ways as they beat Punjab by six wickets on Friday at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai. Umesh Yadav continued his stellar form with the ball in the Indian Premier League as he stunned Punjab with a superb spell of 4 for 23. The other big newsmaker of the day was Andre Russell and his bludgeoning innings of 70 runs off 31 deliveries. After having knocked over Punjab Kings for 137, Andre Russell’s blitzkrieg innings saw KKR chase down the total with 5.3 overs to spare. This win has given their net run rate a massive boost and has also given them two wins in three matches. It was not all smooth sailing for Kolkata Knight Riders at the start of their innings. Rahul Chahar gave much stress to KKR when he bowled a double wicket maiden and eventually finished with figures of 2 for 13. However, Andre Russell was just warming up then. He opened his shoulders with two monstrous sixes of Harpreet Brar in the 10th over and then smacked three sixes and a four off Odean Smith in the 12th over. Russell smashed a four off Arshdeep Singh to bring up a 26-ball fifty and ended the over with a six straight over the sightscreen. With the game all but done, he smashed two more sixes in the next over off Liam Livingstone to seal the deal in the 15th over. Punjab’s attacking approach gave them the win in the last match against RCB, but this game, it failed before KKR. Bhanuka Rajapaksa played nine balls but scored 31 runs. Kagiso Rabada too played a cameo in the backend of the innings, but as Russell showed, 137 runs was never going to be enough. It will be interesting to see if Punjab changes its batting approach after losing this match. After the thrilling match, Twitter users were all praise for Andre Russell and Kolkata Knight Riders: Former Indian opener Virender Sehwag shared an interesting meme to celebrate Russell:  

Harbhajan Singh called him a six-hitting machine:  

Irfan Pathan was all praise for Andre Russell:  

KKR owner Shah Rukh Khan was thrilled with Russell:  

Here are some other reactions:  

What did you think of Russell’s innings?