'Playing too much cricket' - Sanjay Manjrekar states the main reason behind Bhuvneshwar Kumar’s poor run of form

Despite being the leading wicket-taker of the recently concluded Asia Cup, Bhuvneshwar Kumar was heavily criticised for his poor bowling in the death overs during the tournament and then again in the series against Australia. The 32-year-old gave away 21 runs in the 18th over of the third T20I at Hyderabad and ever since, the question of his form came into the picture.

Bhuvneshwar Kumar will take some time off from international cricket and is scheduled to miss the T20I series against South Africa to spend time at the National Cricket Academy (NCA). Now, just like Matthew Hayden, former India international Sanjay Manjrekar believes that some rest will help the cricketer gain momentum before the all-important T20 World Cup. 

“With Bhuvneshwar Kumar, it’s never a very simple answer but you’ve got to give one of the simple answers and one of the main reasons why Bhuvi seems to be off the boil - is playing too much cricket. In the sense, that he’s played all the matches coming into this series as well,” Manjrekar said on SPORTS18’s daily sports news show ‘SPORTS OVER THE TOP’.

“The Bhuvneshwar Kumar I have seen over the years, he’s not one of the strongest guys going around, he’s not somebody who takes a lot of workload, he plays one format and hardly any other. He’s somebody if you notice, barring injury, if he comes later a break to play in any tournament, he’s at his best in the first few games. So, I’m going to put down Bhuvneshwar Kumar’s current performance to just match fatigue,” he added.

Harshal Patel has limitations as a seam bowler: Manjrekar

Ever since Harshal Patel made his return to international cricket, form hasn’t been kind to him. The speedster went for a lot of runs and being a death-over specialist, he was very much off colour. The 57-year-old Manjrekar believes that Harshal has limitations as a pacer and India should keep Mohammad Shami ready as an option.

“Harshal Patel has limitations as a seam bowler, but India must look as one of the third seaming options and must look at a couple of others as options and I keep stressing on Mohammed Shami as the other option,” said Manjrekar on the same show.