Playing for West Indies comes first: Russell

Kingston (Jamaica), Dec 12 : West Indies all-rounder Andre Russell has said that a combination of his poor form in the Indian Premier League (IPL), the mental weariness coming from spending long periods of time in a bio-bubble, and a hamstring injury forced him to pull out of the team’s recent tour of New Zealand.
These factors led Russell to tell captain Kieron Pollard and chief selector Roger Harper that he won’t be able to travel with the West Indies team for the recently concluded T20I series in New Zealand.
Russell also said that he later changed his mind and informed Harper, who then told him that it was too late as the squad had already been selected.
Russell then went on to play the Lanka Premier League (LPL), and that move raised a few eyebrows as it was said at the time that he was not available for the New Zealand tour.
“Playing for West Indies comes first for me,” Russell said responding to a query from Wayne Lewis, secretary of West Indies Players Association, who is also an expert on SportsMax.
“The energy and effort that I put out playing for West Indies, I wouldn’t do it playing anywhere else. Sometimes people don’t understand what a player like myself goes through with niggles and all of those things. But they’re just going to judge, and it’s easy for them to judge,” he said.