Vintage Dre Russ comes calling at Eden Gardens

Imagine being Sunrisers Hyderabad. You have Kolkata Knight Riders six down for not many in the 14th over. You are on a high having just dismissed the only batter in the top five to reach double digits. And then you see Andre Russell walk out at No. 8.

Imagine being Sunrisers Hyderabad. You have blazed away to 67 in seven overs in a 200-plus chase. And in comes Russell to send your opener, who is going at a strike rate close to 170, packing with the second ball of his spell.

Imagine being as good as Russell at cricket.

On a night where one team recorded 208, the other 204, and saw two of the finest hitters of a cricket ball come face to face, it was Russell who came out on the winning side. But not by much. With 60 required off the last three overs, Heinrich Klaasen almost did the improbable, bringing down the equation to 7 off 5 but failing to close out the game for SRH. And KKR snuck home in a last-ball thriller, much to the delight of a packed Eden Gardens crowd.

KKR reached 208 for 7 from the depths of 119 for 6, thanks to Russell's unbeaten 25-ball 64. That it came right at the start of the season would have thrilled him to no end.

Russell didn't have a great IPL last year, failing to record a single fifty-plus score in 14 innings and there were murmurs that he was perhaps past his prime. But he was coming into KKR's opening game of IPL 2024 in great touch. In 14 T20 innings this year, the Jamaican had walloped 410 runs, striking at 222.82. With form behind him, he looked switched on from the get-go.

The first ball Russell faced was from legspinner Mayank Markande, who had dismissed him twice in IPL 2023. So he prodded forward with a straight bat face to defend diligently. He took two singles off the next four balls he faced, and that was all he needed to get his eye in.

Match-ups dictated that Pat Cummins give Markande another over at Russell. It was a logical move. Russell had fallen to legspinners five times in IPL 2023 at a strike rate of 113.51. But that had changed in T20s in 2024, where he had thumped legspinners at a strike rate of 259.25, falling to them just once.

So, when Markande was brought back in the 16th over of the innings, Russell was having none of it. He cleared his front leg first ball and boom went the slog sweep - 91m over deep midwicket. Two balls later, Markande shortened his length ever so slightly. That didn't bother Russell, who swung at it jauntily and sent the ball sailing 102m over deep midwicket. The next ball: similar length, similar result with the distance reading 96m.

Vintage Dre Russ was back.

Now properly in his groove, Russell set his sights on Bhuvneshwar Kumar, against whom he has had a lot of success. Having gone for just seven off his first two overs, Bhuvneshwar leaked 44 off his last two, with 34 coming off Russell's bat in just nine balls. Through the carnage, Russell also raised his first IPL fifty against SRH, getting there in 20 balls. KKR scored 85 runs in the last five overs to post a more-than-competitive total.

"This is exactly why he [Russell] is paid the big bucks around the world and in the IPL. He is a six-hitting machine," Tom Moody, the former SRH head coach, said on ESPNcricinfo Timeout. "The thing with Andre Russell is that his mishits go for six. Most players' mishits get caught on the boundary or five metres in, but that's the X-factor he brings to the table, is that he clubs the ball and it doesn't really matter where it lands on the bat, it disappears for six. If he really middles it, it goes 120m into the second tier."

Cummins believed the SRH bowlers "overall did a pretty good job" but stood little chance against an on-song Russell at the death.

"The toughest job in cricket is bowling to someone like that at the end," he said after the game. "You do your planning, and you try and execute your best, but he's a pretty tough guy to bowl to, it is pretty hard to contain."

Russell wasn't done with the game after his batting masterclass. He came back to remove opener Abhishek Sharma with a sharp bouncer before getting the better of Abdul Samad in the 17th over to finish with 2 for 25 and cap off a special night.

"I just try to react to whatever comes my way," Russell, named Player of the Match, said of his methods. "I know based on over the last year, two years, bowlers have been exceptionally bowling well to me and they plan very carefully when they are bowling to me. So I've been digging runs out in the back end and I'm 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."

For all his heroics, Russell's near-perfect night looked like getting ruined by Klaasen before Harshit Rana bailed KKR out with a nerveless last over, defending 12. Russell probably had the biggest smile of the KKR lot as he ran towards the bowler arms aloft, with a mixture of elation and relief on his face.

KKR will be ecstatic not only with the two points but that the win was set up by one of their most vital cogs. An in-form Russell is critical to KKR trying to bring back the glory days of 2012 and 2014. And if Saturday was any indication, other teams better watch out.