Sri Lanka vs India 2021: "We Aimed To Bat Till The Last Over"- Bhuvneshwar Kumar Recalls Partnership Alongside MS Dhoni

The Indian seamer Bhuvneshwar Kumar produced another steady hand with the bat and his calm head was certainly an influence from his former captain MS Dhoni. In Pallekele, 2017, India needed a partnership desperately to keep their hopes alive and Bhuvneshwar stood up that time in the highest eight-wicket partnership for India in ODIs.

The same happened yesterday against Sri Lanka, and when all the odds were in favor of them, Deepak Chahar and Bhuvneshwar Kumar produced a splendid partnership of 84 for the eighth-wicket and it sealed the series victory over Sri Lanka already in the three-match ODI series.

“We Wanted To Bat As Deep As Possible” – Bhuvneshwar Kumar

Bhuvneshwar Kumar compared the situation to the 2017 game in Pallekele where India was under pressure with 7 wickets down for 131 runs. Dhoni and Bhuvneshwar put on a 100 run partnership which sealed the victory for India but here, Bhuvneshwar played the mature hand while Chahar took the risks. Bhuvneshwar’s words certainly reminded off Dhoni who always wanted to take it to the last over to get the result done.

“The situation was similar to that match (Pallekele 2017). We aimed to bat till the last over. We wanted to bat as deep as possible,” said Bhuvneshwar in the post-match press conference.

“We Were Batting One Ball At A Time” – Bhuvneshwar Kumar

Bhuvneshwar Kumar mentioned that the partnership was all about playing one ball after another and not worrying about winning or losing which looked like the right thing to do. He added that taking the game deep was the plan and to attack if needed in the end overs. He credited Deepak Chahar for controlling the required run rate by taking some risks.

“We didn’t think at any specific time that let’s take it on from here. We were batting one ball at a time. At any stage (during the partnership), we thought about winning or losing as the plan was to keep batting till the end and play according to the situation. Deepak [Chahar] wasn’t letting the required run-rate climb much above six and was playing his shots,” he added