Bhuvneshwar Kumar disheartened by wicketless middle-overs

For the very first time in the ongoing limited-overs tour to India, Australia came up with a dominating performance and levelled the T20I series 1-1 at the Barsapara Cricket Stadium in Guwahati. After being put to bat first, India suffered a top-order collapse and failed to recover from that, finishing with a below-par score of 118 runs. Although Australia, pretty much like the hosts, lost a couple of early wickets, they regained control in the middle overs and didn't allow the Indian bowlers to stage a comeback. 

"If you have to win the match, you have to keep taking wickets especially in the middle overs which we couldn't do. I would say they bowled better than us," Bhuvneshwar admitted that in the post-match presser while stating the wicket was tough for batting.

"It was a tough wicket for batting. Rain was around, it was a damp. So you know, Australian bowlers made the most of the wicket. We tried our best to take initial wickets. I think we tried to rebuild it again. But we couldn't do it. We can't really point a finger on someone and say it was their fault. It was just an off day for us."

Rookie pacer Jason Behrendorff did most of the damage, dismissing Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli in the first over before taking out Manish Pandey and Shikhar Dhawan to reduce India to 27 for 4. Warner decided not to take him out of the attack and although the Western Australia pacer did not pick up a wicket in his final over, his initial carnage was enough for the visitors to sustain the momentum till the end.

"He bowled really well. He made full use of the wicket. It was the perfect kind of wicket for the line and length he bowled. You need to be bit fortunate to get three or four wickets in the T20s. Rohit Sharma's wicket and Kohli's wicket were the crucial point for us, in the first over itself."

While Warner didn’t hold Behrendorff back, bowling out all his four overs in a go, Indian skipper Kohli, on the flip side, changed Bhuvneshwar and Jasprit Bumrah after allowing them to bowl three overs each.

“That is something that is part of the strategy, what the captain is thinking, what he wants to do. [Virat Kohli] made us bowl three overs each in the Power Play and we took wickets. It is up to him if he wanted us to bowl, we could have completed our quota. But that was his thinking. We can’t really say we could have bowled the way we started.”