Bhuvneshwar's swing and miss

Bhuvneshwar Kumar was India's conscience on the tour of England. Not only was he their best player of the tour, he was their spirit, their fight, their pride even when others capitulated towards the end. Only in The Oval Test did he play a loose shot to get out. Yet there were question marks over whether he would be in the Test XI in Australia because the ball doesn't seam much. Or swing, it is mysterious.

Nobody has ever figured out a fool-proof cause-and-effect relationship with regards to swing. When suggested that Bhuvneshwar might not be effective in Australia because of his low pace and no seam movement, former India captain Rahul Dravid said, before the start of the series, "He swings the ball, boss." If a cricket ball is going to swing, you can trust Bhuvneshwar to do it.

Only the Kookaburra swings the least of the three cricket balls used in Tests, SG in India and Duke in England. And if selected for a match this series, it would have been Bhuvneshwar's first with the Kookaburra. In Adelaide, the team was spared an uncomfortable decision: do you play your best player from the previous series despite conditions not being conducive to his type of bowling? Bhuvneshwar was injured, and India had no choice. Given the inconsistency of the attack, though, by the time India reached Brisbane they became desperate to get him fit. He bowled in the nets before the MCG Test, but was not match fit.

There was much anticipation around Bhuvneshwar when he was finally picked for Sydney. There was trepidation too. His ankle was strapped and he hadn't quite gone all out in the nets on the day before, or at least that's how it seemed. The bigger question, though, was what if it doesn't swing? In this series no bowler has been able to swing the ball conventionally apart from the odd one here or there. What would Bhuvneshwar fall back on when there is no swing?

It was apparent soon enough that there was no swing. Or seam. Or variable bounce. The pace soon dropped. The keeper began to stand up to the stumps. Bhuvneshwar even got some treatment on his ankle in the final session of the day. On day two he regularly bowled around 120kmph. When Ryan Harris smacked him around he had to wait and wait - he could have signed a few copies of his newly released book - and wait for the ball to arrive.

As usual the areas he bowled was immaculate. If Mohammed Shami starts to bowl those areas he will be a real mean Test bowler. Yet there was no pace or movement. ESPNcricinfo's graphs have yellow balls for speeds between 55mph and 80mph, and orange ones for 80 to 85. The orange ball is ideally where Bhuvneshwar wants to be. He has them only for left-hand batsmen, who were the openers. By the time he came back for later spells Bhuvneshwar had ceased being a factor, bowling only two balls that breached the yellow zone. You are not going to be a threat at Test level if you don't do anything with the ball, and hardly bowl 130kmph. At least he didn't go at four an over.

The pitch was so flat the India attack would have conceded 500 regardless. When there is no encouragement from the pitch and when the batsmen are running rampant, it is difficult to keep bowling with the same intensity as when you were successful. Yet you can't help but wonder if India had been a bit too desperate, rushing him back to Test cricket, with not much cricket under his belt. MS Dhoni had said before the last Test that he was fit for a one-day international, but not quite up to Test-match fitness. Now with Ishant Sharma, too, injured, India possibly fell for the need for experience and got Bhuvneshwar in prematurely. This is only the third time in his career that Bhuvneshwar has bowled at least 10 overs in an innings, and has gone wicketless.

The India camp won't have any of it, though. Shami said at the end of the day's play that there was no way Bhuvneshwar would have been picked had he not been a 100% fit, and that his fitness shouldn't be judged based on his pace. What about the treatment he received on the sidelines when the play was on? Was it possible he worsened his ankle during the game? Shami said those were just running repairs.

Don't take India's words on players' fitness, though. A day after BCCI sources had ruled Bhuvneshwar out for at least the first two Tests, but on the eve of the match in Adelaide, then stand-in captain Virat Kohli said there was nothing wrong with Bhuvneshwar and that he was available for selection for Adelaide. Go figure.