No more injury concerns for now (fingers crossed), and Bhuvneshwar Kumar is back to taking wickets for India, hooping and swinging the ball both the ways, having the batters befuddled, nailing his yorkers in the death; almost unpickable with his slower variations.
Bhuvneshwar Kumar has been having a stellar 2022 and clearly has been India’s best T20I bowler this year. And this opinion is not just observatory or objective- but is backed by statistics too.
Bhuvneshwar Kumar has been India’s most successful T20I bowler this year yet
In the third T20I vs West Indies, on Tuesday in St. Kitts, Bhuvneshwar picked two wickets – and two crucial ones: that of opener Kyle Mayers who had slammed 73 runs and West Indies skipper Nicholas Pooran who was upping his ante.
With these two scalps, Bhuvneshwar now has 20 wickets in 15 innings in T20Is this year, surpassing Harshal Patel’s tally, who has taken 19 wickets in 14 innings this year. Also, Bhuvneshwar’s average of 16 and economy of 6.83 is much better than Harshal’s 22 and 8.76.
Harshal currently is not fit and hence hasn’t taken part in the three matches so far. Nonetheless, both Bhuvneshwar and Harshal are likely to be part of India’s T20 World Cup squad for Australia a couple of months later and for the Asia Cup later this month. So their good form, where while Bhuvneshwar has been striking regularly with the new ball, Harshal has made dents in the opposition in the death overs, augurs well for Team India.
Overall, Bhuvneshwar’s 20 wickets is the fifth-highest in the world this year in T20Is. The list is led by Nepal’s Sandeep Lamichhane who has 26 wickets in his bag so far.
Less than 24 hours after India and West Indies contested in a last-over thriller in the second T20I on Monday, in St. Kitts, both the teams were up against each other again on Tuesday for the third T20I. The three other bowlers ahead of Bhuvneshwar are from Austria and Ireland. So among top teams who will compete at the T20 World Cup, it is India’s Bhuvneshwar who is actually ahead of the rest bowlers.
Meanwhile, speaking about the third T20I, India skipper Rohit Sharma won the toss and elected to bowl first. West Indies put up a decent total of 164. Opener Kyle Mayers slammed 73 runs off 50 balls while others rallied around him to take their team’s total to 164.
For India, Bhuvneshwar Kumar took two wickets, while Hardik Pandya returned with brilliant figures of 1/19 in his 4 overs and Arshdeep Singh, who bowled three overs in the death on a trot, returned with figures of 1/33.
