SYD­NEY–Ex­plo­sive West In­dies all-rounder An­dre Rus­sell wants to cap a "per­fect" year by help­ing reign­ing cham­pi­ons Syd­ney Thun­der make a win­ning start to their Big Bash League ti­tle de­fence.

The 28-year-old Ja­maican was in­stru­men­tal in help­ing Thun­der win the 2015/16 cam­paign and since then has proved piv­otal in help­ing sev­er­al oth­er fran­chis­es win their do­mes­tic Twen­ty20 ti­tles.

An­dre Rus­sell with TI­TLE An­dre Rus­sell holds the BBL ti­tle aloft af­ter Syd­ney Thun­der won their first ti­tle last sea­son.

He ar­rived here Sun­day for the Thun­der's BBL cur­tain-rais­er against city ri­vals, Syd­ney Six­ers, on Tues­day tired but brim­ming with con­fi­dence.

Af­ter help­ing Thun­der to the BBL ti­tle last Jan­u­ary, Rus­sell's stock rose ap­pre­cia­bly as he went on an in­cred­i­ble run of suc­cess.

He helped Is­lam­abad Unit­ed win the Pak­istan Su­per League, was part of the West In­dies side that won the Twen­ty20 World Cup in April, fol­lowed up by guid­ing Ja­maica Tallawahs to the cap­ture of the Caribbean Pre­mier League be­fore join­ing Dha­ka Dy­na­mites to help them clinch the Bangladesh Pre­mier League.

Last sea­son, he be­came a huge fan favourite in Syd­ney and on Sun­day re­it­er­at­ed his de­sire to help the fran­chise suc­cess­ful­ly de­fend their crown.

Rus­sell has played 227 Twen­ty20s, gar­ner­ing over 3400 runs with his pow­er­ful, low­er or­der hit­ting and tak­ing 206 wick­ets with his live­ly seam.

He will play the BBL cam­paign with the threat of a drugs ban hang­ing over his head, as he awaits judge­ment from Ja­maica An­ti-Dop­ing Com­mis­sion on a "dop­ing where­abouts" vi­o­la­tion. (CMC)