Andre Russell joins injury-plagued Melbourne Stars

West Indies all-rounder Andre Russell will connect up with the injury-hit Melbourne Stars side for five matches, and is set to play his first match of the current year's BBL against Sydney Thunder at the MCG on Friday (December 10).

The accomplished all-rounder is as of now finishing his 72 hours quarantine period subsequent to flying into Sydney. Haris Rauf, the Pakistan quick bowler, has additionally been added to the crew. Rauf will play his first round of the competition on December 27 and stay with the side for the remainder of the period.

"We've had a ton of wounds, a ton of folks yet to turn up," Stars skipper Glenn Maxwell said after the substantial misfortune against Sydney Sixers. "It's simply put us behind where we might want to be for cycle one, however you can't win the competition from cycle one. We're trusting (Marcus Stoinis) will be back the following week. We have (Nathan) Coulter-Nile, Joe Burns, Qais Ahmad... another abroad marking (Russell), so we have a lot of choices," he added.

Russell recently played 19 counterparts for Thunder across three seasons from 2014 to 2017. His last game for Thunder was in January 2017 when he was extended off the field in the wake of harming his hamstring in the match versus Stars. Altogether, he has assembled 296 runs from 17 innings at a noteworthy strike pace of 166.29 in the BBL. He has likewise packed away 23 wickets.

The incredible all-rounder, however, wasn't in great structure in the T20 World Cup held in the UAE and Oman in October and November this year, collecting just 25 runs and getting three wickets. Nonetheless, only several days prior, he displayed his fireworks with a bursting 32-ball 90 while playing for Delhi Bulls in the T10 association in Abu Dhabi.