I am no one-day batsman but the situation was perfect – Bhuvi | Daily News

I am no one-day batsman but the situation was perfect – Bhuvi

PALLEKELE: India’s number nine batsman Bhuvneshwar Kumar had the situation ideally tailor made for him when he came to bat with his team tottering on the brink of defeat at 131-7 in the second ODI against Sri Lanka at the Pallekele International Stadium chasing a revised target of 231 in 47 overs.

India at that stage required to score exactly 100 off 25 overs at four runs an over and it only needed a cool head to get to that target.

With no pressure at all on the run rate Kumar had only to play his normal game and assist his former captain MS Dhoni to see his team through.

“I never thought in my dreams that I would score a fifty in one dayers… not a fifty but a match winning knock because one dayers is the kind of format which doesn’t suit my batting because I am not kind of batsman who can hit big sixes,” said Kumar the spearhead of the bowling department at the post-match press conference.

“But that kind of situation was perfect for me because it was totally a Test match situation. When I went in MS told me to play my natural game like I play in Test cricket. Don’t take any pressure as we had a lot of overs at that time and we knew if we played them out we would chase easily.

“So when I went in there wasn’t any pressure really because I knew there is nothing to lose in this situation as we were already seven down. I was just thinking that I had to support MS as much as I can. That’s what I tried to do,” he said.

Kumar eventually ended up outscoring his senior partner in the partnership moving to his maiden ODI fifty (53 n.o.) while Dhoni finished on 45 not out.

“Having him (Dhoni) at the other end was a feeling of calmness I knew that even in the last 5 overs we will need 7-8 runs per over or close to that, he was there to score the runs. So I didn’t want to worry about scoring runs. I just wanted to play all those overs.”

Kumar said that initially he had difficulty in picking up the googlies and wrong ’un that Akila Dananjaya bowled because they always thought that he was an off-spinner.

But Dananjaya brought about a variety of deliveries to flummox India’s top order taking six wickets before Dhoni and Kumar frustrated him and his team from winning.

“I had a plan against him. Basically he is an off spinner but he was also bowling leg spinners and googlies so it was a surprise for us. When I went in I just wanted to play him as a wrong ’un or the googlies which he was bringing in to me. Whatever was going away from me I wasn’t really worried. Whatever wickets he took was on the googly, the incoming delivery, so my plan was to counter his incoming deliveries,” said Kumar. “Initially it was a bit difficult to read him from the hand but later on when I played him for 10-15 balls I could read his variations from the hand.”

Kumar thanked the team batting coach Sanjay Bangar for helping him improve his batting.

“Thanks to Sanjay Bangar he was working really hard on me. Test cricket is different, one day cricket is different but this situation was as good as test cricket because you have to go through a session,” said Kumar.

“When I went in that was what went through my mind. The good thing was that the situation was totally familiar. Whenever I go into the nets Bangar helps me to counter those things like I have to go through the last session of a Test so it was the same kind of situation and it was a bit familiar for me.” 


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