Kandy: Sri Lanka restricted to 236, two century stands, another in the line of Indian victories and a 2-0 lead – just reading this line would seem like it was just one more day of routine work for Virat Kohli’s side in what has been a one-sided series so far. But a closer inspection of the scorecard would reveal it was anything but that on Thursday (August 24). Going strong at 109 for no loss, with Rohit Sharma ending his lean patch in Sri Lanka, it appeared like India were on course towards a facile win. Along came Akila Dananjaya, a 23-year-old who got married only the previous day, but joining the team instead of contemplating on the honeymoon destination, finding a place in the XI and then going on to turn the match on its head.
Introduced into the attack at the start of the 12th over, following a century opening stand, Dananjaya had different plans as he bamboozled the Indian batsmen to reduce the visitors to 131 for 7. His contributions in the collapse that occurred were six wickets, including that of Kedar Jadhav, Virat Kohli and KL Rahul – in the same over – though, wouldn’t go on to take another wicket, neither would Sri Lanka, as Mahendra Singh Dhoni the finisher came to the fore and Bhuvneshwar Kumar turned out to be a batting hero.
When Bhuvneshwar came in to bat in the 22nd over, Dananjaya was set to bowl his last ball of his sixth over. Like most batsmen before him, he too received a googly first up, but managed to negate it to live another over. The danger, though, was imminent as here was bowler against whom the top-order batsmen had no clue – whether he was bowling leg-breaks, googlies, off-breaks or sliders – India’s batting was in a confused state. Bhuvneshwar too found it tough initially to read the bowler, but managed to hang around and support Dhoni in adding another twist to the tale that was the second ODI.
“I had a plan against him. Basically he is an offspinner but he was also bowling leg-spinners and googlies so it was a surprise for us. When I went in I just wanted to play him as a (bowler who delivers) wrong ones or the googlies which he was bringing in to me. And whatever was going away from me I wasn’t really worried about that. Whatever wickets he took that was on the googly, the incoming delivery, so my plan was to counter his incoming deliveries. Initially it was a bit difficult to read him from the hand but later on when I played him for 10-15 balls I could read his variations from the hand,” said Bhuvneshwar at the post-match press conference.
In an extended spell, Dananjaya bowled two more overs – which made it eight straight overs for him – but Dhoni and Bhuvneshwar kept him at arm’s length and began a fightback that ensured India’s tryst with experiments did not blow on their face. After the end of the opening stand, it was Rahul and not Kohli who walked out to bat. The Indian skipper pushed himself down the order after another wicket went down, sending Kedar Jadhav in at No. 4. The shuffle and Indian batsmen’s struggles to pick the young spinner left the visiting side facing the prospect of suffering their first defeat on this Sri Lanka tour.
But India found a new contributor in Bhuvneshwar, who came up with a match-winning 53 and played a prominent role in an unbeaten eighth wicket stand worth 100 runs with Dhoni. When the two came together, the immediate need was to arrest the slide and build a partnership. The boundaries, therefore, dried up and the strike rates of the batsmen weren’t ones usually associated with limited-overs cricket. Dhoni, during his stay for an unbeaten 45 off 68 deliveries, scored only one four while Bhuvneshwar took the more aggressive route. But that would only come later in the partnership, which was initially about damage control.
“It was a little surprising because we had a very good opening partnership,” Bhuvneshwar said about the top-order collapse. “Then 3-4 wickets fell quickly so it was a bit of a panic situation for us, we were thinking ‘okay what has happened here’. But when I went in to bat, MS [Dhoni] told me to play my natural game like I play in Test cricket. Don’t take any pressure as we had a lot of overs at that time and we knew if we played them out we would chase easily. So when I went in there wasn’t any pressure really because I knew there is nothing to lose in this situation as we were already seven down. I was just thinking that I can play and that I have to support MS as much as I can. And that’s what I tried to do,” added Bhuvneshwar, describing his intentions during his partnership with Dhoni.
Crediting the batting coach for helping him enhance his skills, Bhuvneshwar, who considers himself as player shaped in the Test mould as far as his batting skills are concerned, said the task at hand was similar to playing out a session in the five-day format.
“Thanks to Sanjay Bangar, he has been working really hard with me. Test cricket is different, one day cricket is different but this situation was as good as Test cricket because (it was like) having to go through a session. When I went in, that was thing that went through my mind so the good thing was that the situation was totally familiar. Whenever I go into the nets, Bangar helps me to counter those things like I have to go through the last session of a Test. So it was same kind of situation and that was a bit familiar for me,” Bhuvneshwar explained.
“I never thought in my dreams that I would score fifty in one dayers… not fifty but a match-winning knock because one-day is a kind of format which doesn’t suit my batting. I am not the kind of batsman who can hit big sixes. But that kind of situation was perfect for me because it was totally a Test match situation. When I went in MS said the same thing, ‘play the way you play in Test matches’. I didn’t want to do anything different. Just wanted to play all those overs.”
Having suffered a few collapses in the last couple of months, including the ICC Champions Trophy final against Pakistan and the ODI against Windies in Antigua, this victory would come as a huge sigh of relief for the Indian team. And it was all thanks to Bhuvneshwar’s solid application with the bat and Dhoni’s unyielding essay that they managed to overcome a scare and script a turnaround.
