Bhuvneshwar Kumar credits IPL experience for his ability to bowl well at the death

What’s the story?

Indian speedster Bhuvneshwar Kumar has had an interesting career. Despite his obvious skills as a bowler, with the ability to swing the ball both ways, it can be said that he has not fulfilled his massive potential.

He has proved to be deadly with the new ball when he makes the best of it by swinging it and looking for the stumps, or the outside edges. But a skill he developed over the years, to bowl at the death of an innings, is what is distinguishing him as a bowler.

Having won the 2016 Indian Premier League with the Sunrisers Hyderabad, he credits the league as the reason he honed that particular skill.

"Firstly thanks to IPL, the way I was bowling at the death. Because when Sunrisers (Hyderabad) picked me I was already playing for the country and they were heavily dependent on me to bowl at the death" he said.

In case you didn’t know...

Bhuvneshwar Kumar was recalled to the Indian cricket team for the 2^nd ODI against England in Cuttack in place of Umesh Yadav. When the Indian batters scored a massive 381, you wouldn’t blame Bhuvneshwar for assuming he would have an easy day in the office.

But with the English batsmen putting in an incredible fight, he would have a massive role to play. Having proved his ability to bowl at the death, Virat Kohli entrusted him to bowl a 5-over spell from overs 40 – 50, one of the toughest things to do in the game.

Bhuvneshwar ended the match with figures of 10 overs – 63 runs – 1 wicket at an economy of 6.30, the second lowest for the Indians.

The heart of the matter

The Indian team management have a number of options in the bowling department. With Umesh Yadav proving to be profligate in the last few overs of the first ODI, Bhuvneshwar was picked ahead of him.

While T20 cricket is said to favour the batters and huge scores, Bhuvneshwar believes it helped him become a better bowler.

"It is always difficult to bowl yorkers with wet ball. But we practiced bowling yorkers with the wet ball. That was a plan which we did execute for pressure situations" he added.

What’s next?

Having clinched the series already, India will look to whitewash the visitors when the two sides face off for the final ODI in Kolkata on Sunday. Bhuvneshwar Kumar will expect to retain a place in the side after his performance.

Sportskeeda’s take

With Jasprit Bumrah and Bhuvneshwar Kumar, India have two bowlers who are arguably as good at bowling at the death as they are in the beginning of the innings. With the Champions Trophy around the corner, we expect the duo to be India’s spearheads in the tournament.