Chandrakant Pandit (L) and Andre Russell© X (formerly Twitter)
Senior all-rounder Andre Russell on Thursday backed Kolkata Knight Riders’ head coach Chandrakant Pandit, whose coaching style was termed ‘militant’ by former KKR all-rounder David Wiese. Wiese, who now plies his trade for Namibia, claimed that many foreign players in KKR’s squad were frustrated by Pandit’s tough performance during last year’s IPL. However, Jamaican Russell, an integral part of KKR’s core group, sounded different. “We have been working with him since last year. I think if you’re working with a coach for the first time, make sure you adapt to their philosophy. There must be rules. We are professionals. So we’re not complaining,” Russell said during the pre-match press conference.
“I’m trying to do the best for this franchise. He did a great job and we keep coming back,” he added.
Pandit, who is known as a disciplinarian, had taken over as KKR coach ahead of IPL 2022 after Brendon McCullum took up the job of England head coach.
“He (Pandit) is known in India as a very militant type of coach. He’s very strict, very disciplinary, things like that.
“Sometimes in franchise cricket, when you have foreign guys who have played all over the world, you don’t need anyone telling them how to behave, what to wear and what to do. time.
“So that was tough,” Wiese recently said on the podcast ‘Hitman for Hire: A year in the life of a franchise cricketer’.
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