Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB)’s in-form pacer Bhuvneshwar Kumar has revealed how he outfoxed Mumbai Indians (MI)’s Rohit Sharma and Suryakumar Yadav to get their wickets on back-to-back balls in Sunday’s match at the Shaheed Veer Narayan Singh International Stadium, Raipur.
On the fourth ball of the third over in the innings, Rohit used his wrists to time Bhuvneshwar’s good-length ball past the off-side field for a four. On the next delivery, he stepped forward, but Bhuvneshwar trumped him with a wide knuckleball, bowled at just 116.6 kph, to take the edge to wicketkeeper Jitesh Sharma, who took an excellent catch diving to his right.
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The next ball from Bhuvneshwar was a back-to-basics
on a full length, allowing it to seam away. Suryakumar, who has been woefully out of form, played at it without accounting for the movement and ended up edging it to Virat Kohli at second slip. The RCB talisman made no mistakes for the catch.
“I was being proactive,” Bhuvneshwar said in the mid-innings break. “I was thinking Rohit might step out and the way he plays to me in the past. So I thought that he might step out and bowled that ball. And again, SKY was new into the crease. I wanted to bowl the normal length ball and that worked,” he added.
Bhuvneshwar had already picked up the wicket of Ryan Rickelton in the first over. In his final over, he got rid of Tilak Varma to end with the figures of 4/23, as MI managed only 166/7 in the first innings.
“Honestly, it was a tricky wicket,” Bhuvneshwar said. “It looks like you’re going to have a good time as a bowler. The next ball goes for a boundary. So yes, it was a tricky wicket, but we did well. We had a few plans going into the match. Before the match, we planned a few things and we executed that really well… Like I said, it was a tricky wicket, but the advantage we might have is that there’s going to be dew from the first ball. The batsmen who timed the ball, batted well then rather than who tried to muscle the ball. I think that’s going to be the key for us. I’m backing my batsmen to chase this down,” he added.
