OPINION
Follow Us“It is an education watching you bowl,” said Ian Bishop to Bhuvneshwar Kumar in the post-match interview after Match 65.
The veteran commentator couldn’t stop gushing over Bhuvi’s brilliance in the penultimate over. A maiden over in a T20 is rare. A wicket-maiden is a luxury. To provide that luxury in the 19th over of the innings, when the batting side is keen to maximize the output out of every delivery, is a once-in-a-blue-moon event in T20 cricket. Bhuvi had pulled it off like a master.
Tim David’s injudicious run out at the end of the 18th over had only brought Sunrisers Hyderabad back in the game. But the scars of what he did in the previous over were still threatening. Four sixes in the over including a monstrous 114-meter long hit.
Bhuvi knew he would be bowling the next over watching the ball flying around the park. SRH were lucky they had an experienced campaigner like him to digest that mayhem as it could send a younger mind into turmoil.
The 32-year old used every sliver of his experience to turn that little chance into two valuable points that keeps SRH’s breathing in the tournament. With only 19 runs to defend off 12 balls, he kept the ball away from the left-hander, Sanjay Yadav’s reach. Bhuvi angled the ball across him but such was the execution that it was never in contention of being called a wide. When Yadav perished on the second ball, Mumbai’s chances had taken a considerable hit - reduced from 56 percent at the start of the over to 21 percent now. In two balls, Bhuvi had turned SRH into favorites.
Another four deliveries were left and Bhuvi switched to bowl yorkers, executing them with the similar perfection in which he started the over. He hit the block hole four times in a row. Yes, there was Jasprit Bumrah on strike but any other proper batter would have also struggled to find runs off them. The expression of helplessness on Bumrah’s face told the story. A wily exponent of the yorker length himself and an age-old teammate of Bhuvi, Bumrah was aware that he cannot do much.
He countered David’s four sixes with his four yorkers. In a phase where the batters maximize, it was the wily bowler who shot up his team’s chances. “This is an over for the ages,” remarked Bishop on air.
The over built on accuracy came from the clarity of the game plan from the right-arm seamer. Talking to Bishop post-match, Bhuvi revealed: “Luckily, I got the leg-side boundary (for the right-hander) the bigger one so I was just looking to bowl the yorkers.” The geometry of the ground was why he kept the ball away from the left-hander’s arc while bowling the yorkers to the right-hander. It was a basic plan with godly execution.
*****
Along with keeping SRH alive, it was a vital over from Bhuvi’s personal perspective as well. He has been consistently good at the death without any spotlight on him. It has been a tournament of young pacers. Everyone is going gaga over emerging fast bowling talents from every corner. His own team has a tearaway pacer who has induced polarized opinions on whether he should be rushed into the national side. This over has put Bhuvi back on the map, releasing the statement that there is fuel in his old legs after all.
In IPL 2022, Bhuvi has now delivered 21.1 overs at the death, second only to Harshal Patel’s tally of 21.2. He is among the six bowlers with an economy of under 9 runs per over.
He has bowled 28 yorkers, the third most after Arshdeep Singh (31) and T Natarajan (30). But his economy off that length is only 4.3 runs per over.
However, Bhuvi has fallen prey to the stereotyped vision of judging bowlers - wickets. The utmost currency of bowling has evaded the Sunrisers’ seamer. While at the death, he has nine wickets to accompany his outstanding economy, Bhuvi has picked only seven wickets during the powerplay. But what is his economy with the new ball? It is another outstanding figure - 5.9.
“Wickets column is something where you may get lucky or unlucky but I always look to bowl economical. You cannot go for wickets and leak runs. Bowling economically is my priority,” Bhuvi is clear in his explanation and priorities.
*****
In February, he conceded only four runs in a crucial penultimate over against West Indies. Since then, he has missed just one T20 while delivering consistently in a long tournament like IPL. This is the most fit and effective he has been in a long time. It is a big tick in India’s preparations in a T20 World Cup year. Especially when amidst a fresh bloom of young pacers, Bhuvneshwar Kumar has shown there is no substitute for experience.
