India's bowling coach is confident about Bhuvaneshwar Kumar returning to form

Bhuvaneshwar is struggling to find his form

India’s medium pacer, Bhuvneshwar Kumar has been in and out of the Indian team quite too often now. Bharat Arun, India’s bowling coach believes that Bhuvi will easily get back to his consistency if he works hard, reports ESPNcricinfo.

Arun thinks that Kumar’s strength has always been swing but he has lately been compromising swing for pace and that’s what has been the real problem with the talented swing bowler.

Bhuvneshwar was brilliant last year on the tour to England and seemed like a constant for India’s Test team. He grabbed 19 wickets in that series and also scored 3 fifties which helped India seal one win at the Lord’s.

Since then, Bhuvaneshwar has only played one Test match and critics believe that since his ankle injury, Bhuvi has lost his flair of swing in order to get some pace in his bowling. Everyone knows that he is a natural swinger of the ball and he can be a disciplined bowler as he has that control over his swing.

He has been replaced by Stuart Binny twice now. In Sri Lanka, they called up Binny into the squad from outside when Bhuvi was in the squad. Recently, in the second ODI against South Africa also, junior Binny was again selected over Bhuvaneshwar when the team required a medium seam bowling all-rounder.

Major reasons for Bhuvi’s rejection have been due to Binny being a batting all-rounder whereas, Bhuvneshwar is a bowling all-rounder. Another possible reason for his rejection is his lack of form, this is why he has been released from India’s squad to play for his domestic team, Uttar Pradesh in the Ranji Trophy.

The bowling coach, who was recently in news due to allegations put on him for criticizing Wankhede Stadium’s pitch has a different opinion about the swinger. He thinks that it won’t take much time for him to recover and get back his form.

“Pertaining to Bhuvneshwar, there are people who bowl 140+ kph and still swing the ball, Bhuvi's USP was swing. He has now definitely put more yards in his pace. But it's only matter of time [before he returns]. It's not like he's not swinging the ball. He needs to be consistent. With work, he will definitely come back,” Arun said.

With India playing most of the Test matches in the Sub Continent over the next year, it’s expected that the team will go with more spinners and thus raising concerns for the likes of Bhuveneshwar, Umesh Yadav, and Varun Aaron.

When asked about how he could help bowlers like Bhuvi, Umesh, and Varun, Arun said, “It's a challenge for the team management as a whole, we have to look at the conditions which would suit the combination that we have. Not often that it would give them a great run. But if not I guess the bottom line is to keep them motivated and make them feel that they have a major role to play when the opportunity arises."

There have been constant struggles for the Indian pacers on the Indian soil as the spinners are given more chances than the pacers due to the slow tracks. Arun believes that this a part of Indian Pacers’ struggle.

"If you look at Varun and Umesh, I thought they bowled pretty well in the previous match. Though they were not among the wicket-takers, I thought they bowled exceptionally well. They went under 2.5 runs per over.

“Also, Varun and Umesh bowled a three-over spell where they were reversing the ball. Then, I thought the spinners had a major role to play. It was unfortunate [that they could not play a bigger role] but you have to fight your way up." Arun added.

Arun took a step further to talk about Ravindra Jadeja and praised about the left arm spinner who has been in great touch after giving promising performances in the Ranji Trophy.

"I guess he had some time to reflect [on what was going wrong] when he was out of the team, he had time to think about where to improve. His performance in the Ranji Trophy should have given him loads of confidence.

“Moreover, Jadeja is one of your banker bowlers no matter what - whether Test or one-dayers. He's using that strength to his advantage now." Arun said.

When talked about the second day being washed out, Arun was positive about the match and said that there is still a long way to go in the match and India will be looking to put up a good score.

“I guess there is a long way to go in this Test match. What we would like to focus on is - take it session by session in our batting and look to put up a very good score and then take it forward from there. We would look to put up a very good total to be in the driver's seat," he concluded.

It’s been a struggle for Bhuvi and other seamers, but we hope to see his swing back in action pretty soon. The 25 year old all-rounder would be looking to get back in shape and answer his critics back and it won’t be late when he strikes back again.