Absense of Ashish Nehra added extra load: Bhuvneshwar Kumar

Bhuvneshwar Kumar is the purple cap holder in the ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL) season 9 with 23 victims. He along with Barinder Sran, Moises Henriques, Ashish Nehra and Mustafizur Rahman forms one of the best bowling attacks of the tournament.

Ashish Nehra, who was Bhuvneshwar’s new ball partner, got injured in the middle of the tournament and Bhuvi said that the injury to Nehra added extra load on his shoulders. But he responded very well with wickets upfront with the new ball and with his variations at the backend of the innings. With 23 wickets and an economy rate of 7.50, he has led the Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) attack.

“When I came to know that Ashish Nehra is injured, there was a bit of extra load that fell on my shoulders. However, if you see the way Sran responded to the situation was very good. He didn’t let the pressure show on him after Nehra’s injury.”

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“When you are bowling together there are little things, like how you set the field, what is the strength of which batsman and so how do you bluff him – little things like that which he talked about which has helped,” Bhuvneshwar told iplt20.com. “And that is probably what I tried to help [Barinder] Sran with. I know that I can’t do what he [Nehra] did with his experience. But I was trying to do and play the role that he did.”

He made it difficult for the batsmen in the slog overs with his variations and his pace has also been improved over this season. In the match against Gujarat Lions (GL) on Friday, he had bowled the fastest delivery of the match with the speed gun showing over 142. He credited it to a training program he has been following since the Sri Lanka tour last year. “If we talk about pace, we had gone to Sri Lanka a few months back and I started training from there on,” he said. “I was put on to this thing called Power Training. Our trainer, Mr. Basu, helped me a lot as well. I followed the program given by him. Initially, I wasn’t too convinced with it as it was a bit different but gradually as I got into a route of doing the things he had prescribed, it helped. Now, between games too, I do what is needed to maintain things.”

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He said “bluffing” the batsmen helped him to deceive them. Being unpredictable is the best weapon against any batsman. “What happens these days in cricket is that, watching the way you set the field, the batsman knows what you are going to bowl. But as we play more and understand opponents better, we try to bowl against the field that we have set, but not to the extent that it backfires. What we try to do is to be able to bluff the batsman, stop the runs, and get the batsman out,” he explained.

Sunrisers will face Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) on their home turf in the IPL final on Sunday. RCB is led by Virat Kohli, who is at the top of form along with AB de Villiers. Bhuvneshwar said they would have plans for Kohli. “Everyone knows he is a world-class batsman and the kind of form he is in, it is difficult to bowl to him. But when you are playing against such an opponent, you too want to perform and to get him out. We will definitely have our plans for him. I hope that we will be able to successfully implement our plans,” he concluded.