by Garfield Robinson
(cricbuzz.com)It was evident from his first foray into international cricket that Indian pacer Bhuvneshwar Kumar was a skilled swing bowler. It was a Twenty20 game against Pakistan at Ahmedabad in December 2012, and in just four overs he unwrapped an exhibition of swing bowling rarely witnessed and rarely bettered.
Pakistan's left-handed opener Nasir Jamshed, to give an example, had his bat/pad gap widened by a remarkable four consecutive out-swingers before a huge in-swinger, which began its journey toward the batsman on a similar line as the previous four deliveries, snaked through the opening to remove his off-stump. Bhuneshwar's allotment of overs yielded three wickets for just nine runs that day, and showed the world that he could be a master practitioner of what is often cricket's most elusive and mysterious art.
Nobody knows, it appears, all the factors that make for conditions conducive to swing. Many theories have emerged over the years and many have been quashed. At times, it appears there is no rhyme or reason as to whether or not a ball will swing. In an article on the great Malcolm Marshall, one of the greatest swing bowlers who ever lived, I wrote that swing was like a finicky love interest fawning all over you one day and just not that into you the next. I am now more convinced of that than ever. Those who chase after swing know that they must hone the talent required to make full use of whatever assistance the conditions provide. Good bowlers maximize whatever advantages they are able to squeeze from the environment. And if everything is in the batsman's favour, as is the case on many surfaces nowadays, then bowlers need to still be good enough to contain and to still maintain a reasonable level of threat.
Dale Steyn's ruthlessly late away swing with the new ball is probably the most effective delivery in cricket. It is a delivery so fraught with peril for the unfortunate batsman that when it is going perfectly, survival is often down to mere luck. But Steyn hardly swings the new ball in to the right-hander; in fact there are very few bowlers who can command a cricket ball, new or old, to swing in both directions. Past masters such as Malcolm Marshall, Wasim Akram and Chaminda Vaas were clinical specialists of each-way movement, but of the current crop I can only think of two - Jimmy Anderson and Bhuvneshwar Kumar.
Anderson is certainly not the most formidable pacer in the game. Yet, he just might be the bowler with the widest array of skills. When on song, and operating in felicitous conditions, nobody can instruct a cricket ball the way he can. He is good. Not far behind, however, is Bhuvneshwar.
Bhuvneshwar's action is simple, his high right arm delivering an impressively upright seam. The swerve he has been able to generate has frequently been prodigious, and his apparent ability to move the ball both ways at will, marks him as a potential master of the swing bowling art. If his bowling has a shortcoming it is a lack of pace. Operating at just around 80 mph, sometimes even below that, has its drawbacks. A little more velocity would allow batsmen less time to make adjustments to combat his wiles, making him an even more challenging adversary. More speed, if he can achieve it, would not go amiss.
In the recently concluded Trent Bridge game in the 2014 India/England series, Bhuvneshwar grabbed his first five-wicket haul in Tests. His 5/82 was hard fought on a very lifeless surface. Benign conditions notwithstanding, he gave such an impressive display that the English batsmen are now aware, if they weren't before, that he will be more than a handful when the conditions are more to his liking.
His opening burst never yielded a wicket, but Bhuvneshwar kept it tight and unveiled his full repertoire. An in-swinger kissed Sam Robson's outside edge in the game's very first over but the ball landed short of third slip. But whatever movement there was soon disappeared with the shine of the new ball. He had to wait until the game's 71st over, his 18th, when reverse swing came into play, to reap his first two wickets. The 24-year-old fast bowler sneaked through a door that Ishant Sharma had defied the conditions to break down with three wickets in an incisive post-lunch spell. Both bowlers showed that India's much maligned seam attack has the wherewithal to do serious damage. The gigantic eleventh-wicket partnership between Anderson and Broad was a major setback when things seemed to have been going fairly smoothly, but India had a huge last-wicket partnership as well, and such occurrences will be rare.
With four matches left in the series, the Uttar Pradesh paceman will have more than enough opportunity to show off his wares. In a country where the ball swerves through the air more than it does any place else, India's premier swing bowler needs to have a good series. If his country is to do well in England this time round, then Bhuvi has a very big role to play.
