Mohit’s showings make Bhuvi’s absence a blessing in disguise

Rohit Mahajan

Tribune News Service

Perth, February 26

Blessings, it is claimed frequently, often make their appearances in disguise.

It has become increasingly clear that such a blessing visited the Indian camp in December.

Now, it would be very cruel to call an injury to an India player a “blessing” to the team. That, however, does seem to have happened. Bhuvneshwar missed the first three Tests of the series against Australia with an injury. He came back for the fourth Test at Sydney, and picked up one wicket for 148 runs. He got this one wicket when opener Chris Rogers pulled a short ball right to the man at the boundary, as Australia took off in a frenetic pursuit of runs in their second innings.

Bhuvneshwar didn't seem completely fit at Sydney; he is never superfast, but in Sydney, he bowled only a few balls faster than 130kmph, and many below 120kmph. These speeds, on swing-resistant Australian conditions, are extremely friendly to the batsmen.

Bhuvneshwar Kumar was preferred to Mohit Sharma when the Indian selectors announced the team for the World Cup in January. A very popular website ran a poll on who was the most unlucky to be excluded from the team. Over 2 lakh, 84 thousand votes were polled, and 75 percent of them insisted that Murali Vijay and Robin Uthappa were the unluckiest men among the discards. Only 5.92 percent of the votes said that Mohit Sharma was the most unfortunates of the players who couldn't make the team.

Bhuvneshwar's inclusion, despite being less than fully fit, was not a surprise. From December 12 up to the start of the World Cup, the swing expert has been a regular in the team — he was in 44 of the 63 ODI India played in this duration.

If Bhuvneshwar hadn't got injured before the first Test, it's certain that Mohit wouldn't have been part of the Indian XI here. Bhuvneshwar was India's top wicket-taker in the Test series in the summer of 2015. He had become an unshakeable fixture.

Now, Australia isn't very hospitable to the slow swingers — bowlers need pace and bounce much more than swing here. A Bhuvneshwar bowling at barely 130kmph wouldn't have been much of a threat to the opposition.

Bhuvneshwar began playing for India in the winter at the start of 2013 — swinging the ball in the helpful, wintry conditions, he began impressively, often taking a wicket in his first over. His early strikes helped India. In the 24 ODIs he's won with India, he took at least one wicket with the new ball on 14 occasions. In the 19 defeats he's suffered with India, he's struck in his first spell on only five occasions. He was a key man in Indian wins.

But he's slowing down as a wicket-taker, too. He had 25 wickets from his first 17 ODIs. In the next 27, his return has fallen drastically to only 20. And he's been very expensive in taking these wickets — 56.15 is the average.

All this presented an alarming portent about his performance in the World Cup.

Mohit Sharma came in as the first change bowler in India's two wins, against Pakistan and Australia. He picked up four wickets in the two games, for 66 runs, from 16 overs. Both in terms of strike rate and economy, these are wonderful figures.

The subtext, however, is that Mohit got to bowl after the Indian team had put up totals of 300 or more in the two games. That put the Pakistan and South Africa batsmen under great pressure. It helped, though, that the bowlers added to the pressure by bowling tidy lines and lengths.

MS Dhoni seems to have settled on Mohit Sharma for now. “Bhuvi is fit to play, but we feel that Umesh Yadav, Mohit Sharma and Mohammad Shami are our best bowlers,” Dhoni said in Melbourne after the win over South Africa.

We have had evidence from the two matches in the World Cup. On the basis of that, it can be said with certainty that the injury to Bhuvneshwar has strengthened India. It's not a nice thing to say, but it's factually accurate.