Career
He plays as a lock or a blindside flanker. Andrey was a volleyball player until 15 years old at the Specialized Children and Youth Sports School of the Olympic Reserve N111 in Zelenograd, Russia. After that he decided to try his hand at rugby and joined a rugby school team in Zelenograd.
In Clubs After the Rugby World Cup U-19 in Dubai, Andrey was noticed by the scouts of a French club SUA (Agen).
A couple of months later, in 2006, he signed his first professional contract with the Top14 side SUA (Agen) for 3 years. In 2008, during the third year of his contract, Andrey debuted in a french professional Public Relations Officer D2.
In 2009 Andrey was transferred from Agen to SACA (Aurillac) in the same division Public Relations Officer D2 where he played for a further two years. Later, Clermont-Auvergne, the French giant of European rugby became interested in Andrey but in 2011, the sports director of an English club Sale Sharks Steve Diamond (a former coach of the Russian National Rugby Team), poached Ostrikov to Foggy Albion.
During these four years Andrey has received excellent feedback from sports journalists and sport fans.
Andrey almost completely missed the season 2012/2013 because of a shoulder injury. In 2014/2015 he participated in the as a Sale Sharks player. In 2015 Ostrikov extended his contract with Sale Sharks for two more years.
In the National Team Andrey’s debut in the National Team took place on 1st March 2008 in Krasnodar where he (20 years old) helped the Russian “Bears” to beat the Portuguese National Rugby Team (41:26).
Since that time Andrey has played 25 games for Russia and is one of the irreplaceable players of the team