There are no reports of him asking to be rested as well. That the selectors have still chosen to move on doesn’t bode well for someone who averaged 24.6 per wicket between 2019 and 2021, the best Kumar has ever bowled in his ODI career. Not surprisingly, this was also the time he had his career-best strike rates: 27.2 in 2019 and 32 in 2021. For a fast bowler without express pace or an uncommon release of delivery, Kumar did well for a long time by adhering to the basics of the game - staying accurate, hitting the right lengths and extracting whatever swing was available. Add to that his subtle changes of pace and the ability to nail Yonkers, at will, and Kumar was India’s go-to man almost every time. So what exactly put him out of favor?
The most straightforward reason has to be a rare series stumble for Kumar in South Africa where, apart from going wicket-less, he averaged six per over (6.4 and 8.37) in consecutive matches for the first time since October 2018. Bowlers have off days. But what probably worked against Kumar was the way South Africa dismantled India’s failsafe option in the opening and slog overs. In the first ODI where South Africa batted first, Kumar’s opening spell read 5-0-18-0, but he ended up conceding 23 runs in a three-over spell in the middle before leaking 23 in his last two overs. In the next ODI, where India were defending 287, Kumar got slapped around for 16 runs in his opening over, forcing KL Rahul to pull him out of the attack and handing South Africa the advantage of a robust start as their openers added 132 runs.
Too many boundary balls, too little movement in the air, not enough impact at the end - a number of things worked against Kumar in this series. But what really hurt him was the tendency to pitch shorter - a perennial problem for most fast bowlers at the start of a South Africa tour. Lack of pace was never held against Kumar, but with Deepak, breaking through with his swing and more than decent batting, India can now afford to look beyond him. And since the onus is on giving the newer bowlers more game time during a hasty transition under a new captain with two World Cups in the next 21 months, Kumar’s omission is significant.
Kumar’s dip seems logical against the bigger backdrop of India’s ODI opening bowling stocks dipping since the 2019 World Cup. But it’s not actually a dip in the strictest sense. In the 12 matches, Bumrah played after that, he has taken just 10 wickets at an average of 61.9 (as opposed to a career average of 25.42) and a strike rate of 69.4 (career strike rate is 32.7). In comparison, Kumar’s bowling average has crept up to 36.38 (career average of 35.11) but he brought down his strike rate to 38.3 (compared to a career strike rate of 41.4) for the 13 wickets he took in 10 matches since the 2019 World Cup. Opening bowlers feed off each other, but the numbers show Bumrah hasn’t given much for Kumar to work with from the other end.
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