Change of pace did the trick for Bhuvneshwar Kumar in first T20

The impressive performance in the ongoing South Africa tour has helped improve Indian batsmen’s reputation of not being good players of short-pitched balls, Bhuvneshwar Kumar feels.

“Whenever India goes abroad, the reputation is that India are not good at batting against short bowling. This time we haven’t seen that thing. We’ve really tackled it well.

Today they bowled 5-6 overs of short bowling to us early on and it really backfired,” Bhuvneshwar said after India’s 28-run win.


Bhuvneshwar (5 for 24) grabbed his maiden five-wicket haul in T20Is on Sunday to become the first Indian pacer to pick up five-wicket hauls in each format of the game.

“What I was trying to do is bring about change of pace in my bowling. I just wanted to take the pace off the ball because I knew it won’t be easy to hit the ball and that’s what I did. The important thing is how you mix your deliveries according to the wicket,” he said.

“For instance, today we bowled a lot of slow balls. It was a part of our strategy on this wicket, to do away with pace and make it difficult for the batsmen to score. Apart from line and length, it’s important to understand how you want to mix your deliveries. It matters. Today, for instance, it was about bowling slow.”

Bhuvneshwar hailed the team’s win in the first T20I as a “complete performance”. “When we went in there, we knew what we wanted to do as best as a bowling team. We lost the first two Test matches and then we came back. The momentum was on our side and if momentum is on your side, you have got to make it count. Credit has to go the team for the way we’ve played in every department,” he said.

Bhuvneshwar has experienced a successful tour after impressing with both bat and ball in the Tests as well as the ODI series.

“First thing, it comes with fitness. It’s not easy playing all three formats, especially on a single tour. So the first thing before coming here what I wanted to do is manage workload. I wanted to practice but in a specific way, so as to not put extra workload on the body,” he said.

“Taking wickets means a lot when you play for your country. It doesn’t matter if you take five or how many as long as you’re winning matches for your country.

That’s what matters and taking fifers in every format feels good. I want to do it as long as possible.”