The second ODI at Pallakele witnessed no less than a nail biting finish. Who would have thought when at one time India was 109/0 with the likes of 100 run partnership between the openers Shikhar Dhawan and Rohit Sharma will be 131/7.
All credits are to be given to Sri Lanka’s mystery spinner Dananjaya whose six wicket haul bamboozled Indian batting order. But cricket is such an unpredictable game that’s the best part about it. At a point where things looked a bit of impossible for men in blue came the savior 100 run 8th wicket partnership of Dhoni and Bhuvneshwar.
Now Dhoni can surely be expected to play such an anchored innings but who would have expected Kumar to play the innings of his life. Bhuvneshwar Kumar brought up his maiden ODI fifty. But those of us who follow cricket is well aware of his batting skills. This was not the first time that he has come up with a fifty for his side. During the 2014 India’s tour of England, he had hit three fifties in the Test series.
His childhood coach, Sanjoy Rastogi, said that Bhuvi always wanted to be an all rounder and thus he gave an equal amount of time and concentration to his batting and bowling.
“There used to be matches of 8 overs and huge scores of 150+ were often made and Bhuvneshwar was really good with the bat. When he joined my academy, he had brilliant foot work enquired about his batting. He was a different person as he used to give equal time to both batting and bowling altogether. During the early years when we had barren grounds, he used to practice with wet balls which hugely improved his game,” quoted Sanjoy Rastogi as per the quotes in Xtratime.in.
“In the 2005-06 seasons, when Uttar Pradesh defeated Bengal to win the finals of the Ranji Trophy, Bhuvneshwar and other players were highly inspired by the players of those times like Md. Kaif, Suresh Raina, Praveen Kumar, RP Singh and Piyush Chawla. Ever since his childhood he used to dream of becoming an all-rounder,” he added further.
Bhuvneshwar’s father, Kiran Pal Singh, was proud to see his son bat in that prowess in an adverse situation and help the team win.
“I always wanted my son to play cricket. We even had options of playing him from Delhi as the distance from Meerut to Delhi is very less. However many youngsters play well from Delhi and somehow I thought that my child would get lost from there. So I wanted my son to play from UP,” said the proud father.
