Twitterati unimpressed with selection of Ishant Sharma over Bhuvneshwar Kumar

Team India skipper Virat Kohli has the habit of going with a changed playing eleven for every Test match that he plays as the leader. Coming in to the Centurion Test against South Africa, a few changes were expected to be made in the Indian lineup. But little did the fans know that the team would end up dropping Bhuvneshwar Kumar from the playing eleven. The visitors were badly beaten in the first Test in Cape Town.

Make no mistake, the batsmen were to be blamed for the dismal show across the two innings in the game. Hence, as the build up to the second game of the three-match series got intense, the pundits got their brains working on which batsman would make it to the playing eleven to solve India’s batting woes. Team India did bring in KL Rahul in place of Shikhar Dhawan in the match.

However, they stunned everyone by not roping in Ajinkya Rahane in the side. Well, to some extent, the exclusion of Rahane could actually be justified considering the fact that he had only scored 17 runs in 5 innings in the Sri Lanka series. But the change that seems to be totally unacceptable was the omission of Bhuvneshwar Kumar.

It was Bhuvi who had the Proteas batsmen reeling on 12/3 in the first hour of play in Cape Town Test. He was arguably the best Indian bowler in the match. Also, he stayed longer at the crease more than many of the specialized batsmen in the side. When the chips were down in the first innings at 92/7, it was Bhuvneshwar Kumar who had played the ideal second fiddle to Hardik Pandya in the innings.

Well, Bhuvi is out of the Centurion Test and Ishant Sharma comes in. It will be interesting to see how things turn out now. The big heads were shocked to see Bhuvi’s exclusion. And the fans could not believe their senses either.

“Staggered by the exclusion of Bhuvneshwar. Staggered. One player gave you a chance in Cape Town. And he won’t be bowling at South Africa,” quoted Harsha Bhogle in disbelief.

Here is how the Twitterati reacted to Bhuvi’s omission:

Stay updated on every cricket news and developments with CricTracker.