World Cup 2019: Bhuvneshwar Kumar fit to play, informs coach Sanjay Bangar

Back on June 16 during the match against Pakistan at the Old Trafford in Manchester, Indian fast bowler Bhuvneshwar Kumar tweaked his hamstring. The pacer bowled a couple of overs after which he walked off the park gingerly. Subsequently, the Meerut-born pacer was ruled out for a couple of games. Mohammed Shami came into the side in his place in the match against Afghanistan and got a hat-trick.

Shami picked up a four-fer versus the Windies followed by a five-wicket haul against hosts England at the Edgbaston in Birmingham. Shami has picked up 13 wickets in three matches, making Kumar’ road back into the team a little more difficult. In the meantime, assistant coach Sanjay Bangar updated on Bhuvi’s injury and said that he’s attained the desired level of fitness.

In fact, the 29-year-old was fit even before the  England match. Bangar, who’s also a former Indian cricketer, updated about same before India’s penultimate league match against Bangladesh on July 2 in Birmingham itself. “Bhuvneshwar is fit to play. He was fit to play against England as well,” Bangar was quoted as saying in the pre-match press conference.

A confident Bangar ahead of Bangladesh match

Previously, India beat the Tigers in the warm-up match in Cardiff and the Men in Blue would be hoping to replicate something similar even in the last game. Bangar mentioned that the Indian team would be looking to learn from their previous mistakes in their erstwhile game.

“We know the wicket and ground dimensions really well. We would try to learn from the match against England. We will assess the things that went wrong and try to execute our skills better against Bangladesh,” a confident Bangar added.

Moreover, he also hinted at Ravindra Jadeja’s inclusion in the eleven. “The team management will be open to various combinations in the next match. We will look at the wicket and the ground dimensions. We will look at Ravindra Jadeja coming in,” he added.

Jadeja played both the warm-up matches but is yet to play in the main round. In the last match versus Eoin Morgan’s Brits, he came in as a substitute fielder and took a couple of important catches to dismiss Jason Roy and Ben Stokes, both of whom scored half-centuries.