Bhuvneshwar exemplifies pacemen's travails

SYDNEY: In contrast to their Australian counterparts in this series, India's frontline bowlers have been playing for longer at international level. What's more, they have also grown up playing on the kind of absolute belters dished out by the Aussies in this five-match ODI series. Surprisingly, though, India's bowlers have struggled to put the ball in the right areas throughout the four games they have played here.
A good example is Bhuvneshwar Kumar - the medium pacer who shot to fame after picking two wickets in his first two overs in ODI cricket, against Pakistan in 2012, has lost his rare ability to swing the ball even as his pace has gone up a few notches.
During Wednesday's game in Canberra, the 25-year-old strayed down leg, bowled help-yourself full tosses to the likes of Steve Smith and ended up conceding 69 runs from his eight overs. He had gone wicketless in Perth too. Not very long ago, the South Africans pillaged 106 runs off his bowling in the Mumbai ODI late last year.
MS Dhoni was asked if Bhuvneshwar has moved on from being a swing bowler to a pacer. The skipper instead blamed the two new white balls rule for the disappearance of his swing.
"World over, since the new rules and the two new-balls theory, I don't see a lot of swing. Even the best of bowlers like Dale Steyn and people who used to genuinely swing the ball, I don't think they're doing it," Dhoni said.
"I still remember people used to say, with the white ball, even if you play on concrete surfaces, it will still swing a bit. That swing has disappeared. You still get a bit of seam movement, but you don't see a lot of swing. Every bowler has his own strength, and Bhuvi's strength is swing. He will still swing the ball and that will be his strength," Dhoni said.
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A day before the fourth ODI in Canberra, team director Ravi Shastri had put in a request to the Indian cricket board (BCCI) through the media that there was a need to identify specialist bowlers for all three formats of the game.
While saying that an extra bowler should be in the squad for tours of Australia and England, Shastri had said: "At least seven or eight bowlers have to be there all the time and we should also have specialists for T20, ODIs and Tests."
Dhoni, however, gave a broader perspective to the issue, saying a bowler with an accurate yorker can fit into all three formats. "It depends on the bowler. If you pick any bowler, he will have his strengths and weaknesses. In the limited-overs format, what he really has to be good at is bowling yorkers. Whether he chooses to or not, whether he chooses to bowl back of a length, will depend on the scenario and the pitch.
"But you need to have that ability to hit the yorkers. There are times where we have seen there is not much on offer, and at that time you have to get the yorker right. And accordingly for the Test format, the requirements are quite different. If you have someone who can fit into all three formats, why not? But if not, you have to groom youngsters. If there is someone who can mix his pace, he is more suited to limited-overs. You have to push him to develop the yorker so that he becomes a more complete bowler."