Bhuvneshwar Kumar has been the ace bowler for Sunrisers Hyderabad in all seasons of IPL. He is among the top three fast bowlers who have picked up the most wickets in the history of IPL.
The Indian pacer has appeared in 132 matches and taken 142 wickets in them. In 2022 season, he will lead the bowling attack of Sunrisers Hyderabad along with T.Natarajan and Karthik Tyagi. Bhuvi had debuted in the year 2011 in IPL from the side of Royal Challengers Bangalore under the leadership of Daniel Vettori. However, the stepping of him into the Indian team had a different story. He was inducted on the recommendation of MS Dhoni, as MSD loves the swing pacers.
He might not be dazzling as Jasprit Bumrah or Jofra Archer, but he consistently did well for team India and SRH. Bhuvi relies more on swing bowling than pace but can flawlessly execute sharp yorkers. Here’s a list of top ten swing bowlers in the world of cricket.
He bowled a couple of fantastic spells for SRH in the Indian Premier League, but here are his top 5 match-winning one’s across all the seasons of IPL.
#1 5/19 SRH vs KXIP in 2017
In a league match against Kings XI Punjab, Bhuvneshwar Kumar had produced his finest figures in the IPL 2017. He had picked up a 5-wicket haul by conceding just 19 runs in 4 overs of his quota. Batting first, Hyderabad had posted 159/6 in their 20 overs. But, as Punjab batters came to bat, Bhuvi gave a big dent to their innings by getting wickets of Hashim Amla, Glenn Maxwell & Manan Vohra. But still, KXIP fought hard, but in the end, SRH clinched the victory by a narrow margin of 5 runs.
#2 4/14 SRH vs RR in 2014
Winning the toss, RR had invited Sunrisers Hyderabad to bat first. But, as expected, RR optimised the pitch condition perfectly and curbed SRH to 134/9 in the first innings. But, nobody expected that Bhuvneshwar Kumar would spoil RR’s party even in the presence of heavy dew. He took a 4-wicket haul by just conceding 14 runs and bowled with an excellent economy of 3.50 in that match. But, with poor batting, RR couldn’t survive the full 20 overs and got all out on 102 runs in 19.5 overs.
#3 4/29 SRH vs GL in 2016
In the first tournament match between both teams, SRH had dominated the proceedings single-handedly. By batting first, Suresh Raina leading Gujarat Lions grounded on a score of 135/8, thanks to Bhuvi. He produced figures of 4-0-29-4, including the wickets of the skipper Suresh Raina & the opener Aaron Finch. Later, SRH chased down the target by 10 wickets due to the super showdown of David Warner & Shikhar Dhawan.
