Bhuvneshwar was special throughout: Boucher

BENGALURU: South Africa head coach Mark Boucher termed India pacer Bhuvneshwar Kumar’s performance in the series as “special” while ruing the absence of Aiden Markram, who he feels could have made a lot of difference for the Proteas over the course of the five T20 Internationals.

Bhuvneshwar, who now plays only white-ball cricket for India, got six wickets in four completed matches and gave away just 85 runs in 14 overs at an economy rate which was just a shade above six runs.

“Bhuvi was special in this whole series as we came up against some quality bowling. He put us under pressure in powerplays. Barring one game (Delhi), where we got off to a good start, it (India) dominated us with both ball and bat in powerplays,” Boucher said after the series ended in 2-2.

Losing Markram due to Covid-19 at the start of the series had a huge impact, felt the former gloveman. “It was tough losing Aiden even before we started the first game. We wanted to play six batters with Aiden being our sixth [bowling] option and we could not do that,” Boucher added.

The long IPL did make the players tired and that had an effect on the final outcome, Boucher said. “We did not play our best cricket and it was quite tough on our IPL players to stay throughout the whole IPL and then come to India back-to-back,” Boucher explained.

“Guys are a little bit tired as well. So, they will all enjoy the break, [having learnt a] lot of lessons in a World Cup year. And see, if we can plug a few gaps going into Australia albeit in different conditions,” Boucher went on to add.

Boucher lauded the depth of the Indian cricket system created by the IPL since stars like Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and Jasprit Bumrah were rested for the series. “I know there were not a lot of top (India) players over here but the depth that Indian cricket has at the moment largely due to the IPL, they can take a lot of confidence as well.”