Kolkata: Mohammed Shami was ruled out of the Asia Cup after failing to recover from a hamstring injury. BCCI have named Bhuvneshwar Kumar as his replacement. But question has been raised by Former Indian Test and Ex bowling coach of NCA over the selection of Bhuvneshwar Kumar. He said,”If BCCI wanted to replace Shami they could have easily gone for other names like Ishant Sharma, Varun Aaron, Umesh Yadav. Bhuvi also needs time for mental preparation but here he doesn’t get any time to prepare himself for the Asia Cup. This is baseless.”
Earlier a left thumb injury had ruled Bhuvneshwar Kumar out of the T20 series against Australia. Rishi Dhawan replaced him. Bhuvneshwar last played an ODI against Australia in January 2016. India had lost the ODI series in Down Under.
Karsan Ghavri has raised question regarding Bhuvneshwar’s inclusion.” The way team selection was done is not right. I only want to know have the Indian selectors done justice to the Indian team by selecting Bhuvi? Are they repeating the same mistakes?”
Despite of Shami’s injury, Bhuvi was selected for the Asia Cup.
He also added,” Bhuvi has not played a domestic match after returning from Australia. In aT20 match alongside bowling you also have to field for the remaining 16 overs. No one has any idea about his fitness. I too want to see the Indian bowlers performing well. But one needs to be mentally prepared before playing in such a big tournament.”
On being asked if he remembered some incidents like that the former Indian cricketer replied,” In 1994 Kapil Dev was included despite of his half-fitness under Azhar’s captaincy. At that time he was very close to reach the milestone of 432 wickets breaking the record of Richard Hadlee.