They had a vision – Bhuvneshwar Kumar lauds Ravi Shastri and Virat Kohli for India’s pace bowling transition

If we turn back the clock a decade, India was still trying to find their rhythm overseas in the longest format of the game. Then came 2018, when India stunned the world by shocking Australia in the latter’s fortress and since then it has been a journey worth savouring.

It hasn’t exactly been all rosy but looking your foe in the eye on the bouncy SENA fields needs more than guts. It needs prolonged preparation. It needs relentless practice and more importantly, a nuanced plan that goes deeper than just cricketing technicalities on pen and paper.

Talking on the Big Basket presents RCB Podcast, Bhuvneshwar Kumar opened up on how India’s systematic preparation and planning helped them step across the seas and bring their A-Game, courtesy of a pace unit with multiple spearheads ramming through titanium, defences and timber alike.

Bhuvi said, “Some of the credit of getting so many fast bowlers goes to the IPL as well because so much of that talent that you see, you bring them in a set-up, now they mature. So credit goes to IPL. Generally, we play in India and they are all spin-friendly wickets. When we go abroad, there will be usually fast-bowling wickets. And that is where the credit goes to Ravi Shastri and Virat Kohli. They had a vision.”

He further added, “Vision matters a lot. I remember two or three of our series were going to be outside. So before that, especially the series in India, they gave the wickets for fast bowlers just to prepare. I think that shows what their vision was. These are small things but they matter a lot. The wickets in domestic were the same usually but every series that we played in India had pacy wickets contrary to the spin-conducive tracks that we usually have.”