IPL 2019: Dinesh Karthik gives an update on Andre Russell's fitness

The Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) are fretting over Andre Russell’s fitness ahead of their game against the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) on Friday. Russell has been playing with the injury in the last couple of matches but he was hit on the neck in the nets on Wednesday and since then has been in doubt to play in the next game. However, the KKR skipper Dinesh Karthik cleared all the air over his availability saying that Russell is still the part of the team’s game plan for RCB clash.

He also informed that the Caribbean cricketer went for X-Ray soon after getting hit and the team is monitoring him closely. “He went for a preliminary x-ray yesterday. To be fair, it has not even been 24 hours since the incident. We are monitoring him. Andre is definitely a part of our plans for tomorrow’s game,” Karthik said.

"He went for a preliminary x-ray yesterday. To be fair, it has not even been 24 hours since the incident. We are monitoring him." 🗣

Skipper @DineshKarthik clears the air over @Russell12A's availability for #KKRvRCB! 🤞#AndreRussell #KKRHaiTaiyaar pic.twitter.com/EnwilbYF3q

— KolkataKnightRiders (@KKRiders) April 18, 2019

Russell – The Match Winner

Andre Russell has been the match-winner for KKR this season hands down. He has single-handedly won matches for them from a hopeless position. But the team seems to be over-dependent on him and they have also paid the price for it having lost their last three matches.

Russell missing out on the next game would give them a better reality check it seems and as a team, KKR might perform well. Russell has so far scored 312 runs in seven outings for his team at a prolific average of 78 and an unreal strike-rate of 213.70. He has smacked 30 sixes so far to go with 21 fours and the juggernaut was only stopped in the previous game by Imran Tahir.

Apart from that, he has been playing really well for KKR this season and even tried to bowl with an injury. It will be interesting to see if Russell plays with injury against RCB as well.

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