Bhuvneshwar Kumar appeared in international cricket after a while today as he was included in the playing XI of India for the Sydney test match.
He bowled quite a few overs, but, the lack of match practice was clear there. He was not being able to run in hard and make the ball zip through and that made people question if it was the right decision to pick him.
Bhuvi was seen spending a bit of time with the team doctor as well on the sidelines. He was holding his ankle.
The speed of his deliveries was very low too. He is not an express bowler anyway, but, he bowls with a decent pace. He clicks in the early one-thirties. But, today, it was down to one-twenties.
His fitness should perhaps have been tested in a warm up game first. But, the new Indian test captain Virat Kohli did not consider it necessary. He went with the swing bowler straightaway.
And, picking Bhuvi was not the only strange decision that Kohli made in the morning today. He actually made a couple of more strange decisions.
The strangest of them all was to drop Cheteshwar Pujara in favour of Rohit Sharma. That was totally out of the blue. Nobody would have seen that coming.
KL Rahul was given another chance which was perhaps fair enough as a new player, especially somebody who is so young, needs confidence to succeed at this level.
Rahul, however, would like to make sure that he doesn’t play the same sort of shots again that he had played in Melbourne.
He would be opening in Sydney as Shikhar Dhawan is not there. So, there would be more responsibility on him. Facing the new ball against the Australian attack is no joke.