India captain Virat Kohli has retained his belief in the abilities of pacer Bhuvneshwar Kumar, calling him a “priceless” asset to have because of his experience, accuracy and shrewd game-awareness.
These attributes, Kohli feels, will hold Bhuvneshwar in good stead during the T20 World Cup even as he approaches the tournament after an indifferent Indian Premier League season.
One of India’s first-choice seam bowlers, Bhuvneshwar had his worst season in terms of economy rate this year, conceding 7.97 per over with only six wickets. In the UAE leg, however, there were signs of resurgence in this regard as he went for only 7.04 runs per over.
And though Bhuvneshwar’s death-bowling execution has undoubtedly been on the wane, in one of the second half IPL 2021 fixtures, he helped Sunrisers Hyderabad defend 12 off the last six balls despite bowling to the great AB de Villiers against Kohli’s Royal Challengers Bangalore.
“No, not at all [concerned],” Kohli told the press, as quoted by ESPNcricinfo, when asked to sum up his thoughts on Bhuvneshwar’s form. “
“His economy rates still continue to be top-notch, something that he’s always been known for and his experience comes to the fore under pressure.
If you see the game that we [Royal Challengers] played against Sunrisers, the last game, where he had to close out the game against AB de Villiers, probably one of the two or three most destructive lower-order finishers in the T20 game…It explained or spoke volumes of what experience Bhuvi brings on the field,”
the skipper added.
Kohli further heaped praise on Bhuvneshwar, saying his understanding of what areas to hit against which batter has been magnificent over the years. The lengths and consistency, Kohli continued, with which Bhuvneshwar operates, makes him a difficult prospect to “get away”.
“I think his experience and accuracy has always been priceless for the team. He’s back to being at full fitness, which augurs really well for our team.”
Kohli also gave a rationale behind going back to Ravichandran Ashwin and picking young Rahul Chahar over Yuzvendra Chahal. On Ashwin, the skipper added that he is a much “improved” bowler with regards to his “courage” in white-ball cricket.
Virat added that Ahswin has been unafraid to bowl the “difficult overs” and deliver the ball in the “right areas” even if that means risk going for runs against some strong powerhitters.
Ashwin didn’t have the best season but remains one of the league’s finest spin bowlers, with an economy rate of only 6.91 over 167 matches in his Premier League career.
Kohli said Ashwin coming back into the white-ball arena after four years is a sign of the revival of his limited-overs skills and the resurgence of finger-spin in general, which had fallen out of favour for 2-3 years in the Indian set-up amid the rise of wristspin.
But with both Chahal and his prominent wristspin partner Kuldeep Yadav not there in the squad now, things are beginning to change again.
On Chahar above Chahal selection, Kohli admitted leaving out the latter was a “challenging call” but one taken for a reason as they identified a chink in Chahal’s armoury and went for an option which can bowl into-the-deck on those surfaces in UAE and skid the bowl when it is going uneven from the track.
“We believed that heading into this tournament, the wickets are going to get slower and slower and guys who are probably going to bowl with a lot more pace as you saw in the later stages of the tournament [IPL] were the ones who were able to trouble the batsmen, those who didn’t give the ball too much air,”
Kohli said.
India begin their preparations for the T20 World Cup with the first of two warm-up games against England on October 18 and Australia on October 20. They’ll open up their campaign in the tournament proper with a Super 12s fixture against arch-rivals Pakistan in Dubai on October 24.
