Bhuvneshwar Kumar has been under a lot of pressure after the Asia Cup. The seasoned pacer proved expensive in the final overs despite taking a five-wicket haul against Afghanistan in the continental tournament. His poor bowling ultimately contributed to India’s failure to advance to the Asia Cup final. Bhuvneshwar participated in two games and one T20I match against Australia in the just-finished series. He had an economy of 13 RPO. The management of the team is sure to get more worried about Bhuvneshwar’s performance given that he is a member of India’s 15-person T20 World Cup roster. Former Indian cricketer Sanjay Manjrekar commented on Bhuvneshwar’s recent performance. “With Bhuvneshwar Kumar, it’s never a very simple answer but you’ve got to give one of the simple answers and one of the main reasons why Bhuvi seems to be off the boil – is playing too much cricket. In the sense, that he’s played all the matches coming into this series as well,” Sanjay Manjrekar said.
“The Bhuvneshwar Kumar I have seen over the years, he’s not one of the strongest guys going around, he’s not somebody who takes a lot of workload, he plays one format and hardly any other. He’s somebody if you notice, barring injury, if he comes later a break to play in any tournament, he’s at his best in the first few games. So, I’m going to put down Bhuvneshwar Kumar’s current performance to just match fatigue. Harshal Patel has limitations as a seam bowler, but India must look as one of the third seaming options and must look at a couple of others as options and I keep stressing on Mohammed Shami as the other option.” India will play Pakistan in their opening T20 World Cup encounter on October 23.
