Bhuvneshwar Kumar shared his thought on knocking off Hardik Pandya in Kolkata

Indian all-rounder Hardik Pandya had a lucky escape when he was hit by a shot from Bhuvneshwar Kumar’s bat. Kumar smacked a Nathan Coulter-Nile’s delivery straight into Pandya, after which the non-striker needed medical attention. even though Pandya got up on his feet and gestured that he was okay, but replays confirmed that Pandya was hit under his ear. Luckily, he managed to take some pace off the ball but getting his hands in between.

Kumar revealed that he didn’t realise that he had hit the ball so hard. He checked his willow after knocking off Pandya during the 2nd ODI. India posted 252 on the board, and ended up winning the game comfortably after the bowlers put on another good show. Spinner Kuldeep Yadav hogged the limelight with a hat-trick.

“I checked my bat just to reconfirm that it was indeed me who struck the ball with so much power. When he got hit, we were all worried,” Bhuvneshwar told BCCI’s website bcci.tv. He added: “It looked like a serious blow, but thankfully he was alright. Once he was back on his feet, we began planning about building a partnership.”

Captain lauded the team effort

Skipper Kohli was happy with the way India went about things. He said “We didn’t feel like we had enough at the break. We knew if we had a good start, we had a chance. We needed breakthroughs throughout. The wicket wasn’t that easy to bat, all the batsmen felt that. Bhuvi’s spell was more important because they needed runs in the first 10 overs.”

Talking about the impressive performance of the spinners, he said “Two young guys, bowling with a lot of heart, speaks volumes of their character. Keeps competition up with the World Cup in 2019. We have a lot of options and all bases covered. I always try to create motivation for myself, I don’t like differentiate at any stage, I knew I had to stay longer because the wicket was tricky. It came off today so it looked nice, it didn’t in Chennai so it didn’t look nice.”