Bhuvneshwar Kumar believes India’s struggles with short ball in overseas are over

On a Wanderers track, which tremendously supported pace and bounce, the hosts’ decision to go with short balls in the initial powerplay overs was not a foolish idea as it was more likely to fetch them quick wickets. India’s reputation of being poor judges of the short ball in overseas conditions was also reason enough to go ahead with the gameplan.

However, it backfired horribly as smashing displays by Rohit Sharma, Suresh Raina and Shikhar Dhawan saw India scoring their highest ever score (78)  in powerplay in T20Is. The solid start paved the way for India to post a mammoth total of 204 eventually and Bhuvneshwar believes India have finally overcome their poor reputation.

"Whenever India goes abroad, reputation is India is not good at batting against short bowling. So, this time, we haven't seen that thing. We have really tackled it well. Today they bowled 5-6 short overs to us early on and it really backfired on them," he remarked, reported Cricbuzz.

"Whatever the reputation we had, in the last few years we are playing totally opposite of that. We have managed the short ball pretty well on this tour. They wanted to bowl short but it didn't really work well for them. (When) Something doesn't work for you, you have to come up with something else (plan b), so that's what probably worked to our advantage."

On a day where Indian wrist spinners weren’t supposed to be that effective and Kuldeep Yadav had to rest with an injury, India had to rely on their versatile pacer who took the side home by claiming five wickets and conceding just 24 runs. The biggest thing that worked for India during the second innings was their slower deliveries, which eventually restricted the Proteas to 175/9 in 20 overs.

“Just like how you prepare your strategy before going into any game, how to bowl, what lengths to bowl, what line to stick to, let's stick to this length, let's bowl a bit back of length, those kinds of things, the important thing is how you mix your deliveries according to the wicket.

"For instance, today we bowled a lot of slow balls. It was a part of our strategy on this wicket, to do away with pace and make it difficult for the batsmen to score. Apart from line and length, it's important to understand how you want to mix your deliveries. Today, for instance, it was about bowling slow," explainede Bhuvneshwar.

Though BCCI has done a great job in compartmentalizing squads according to the different formats of the game, there are few players who remain a crucial part in all the three formats. Bhuvneshwar definitely falls in the latter category, which makes it all the more important for him to remain fit. The pace bowler, however, credited the workload management for his fitness and superior form in the tour, where he has claimed 17 wickets at an average of 25.17, so far.

"It's about managing the workload. Things have been going good so far, so touch wood two more matches to go and then we'll see what the body's saying. It comes with fitness. It's not easy playing all three formats, especially on a single tour. So the first thing before coming here what I wanted to do is manage workload. I wanted to practice but in a specific way, so as to not put extra workload on the body,” added Kumar.