I didn’t realise the importance of pace in the first couple of years – Bhuvneshwar Kumar

India’s swing fast bowler Bhuvneshwar Kumar feels he didn’t realise that he needed to add an extra couple of yards of pace to his armoury in the early stages of his career.

Kumar is well known to swing the ball both ways but he used to bowl around 125 kmph in the nascent stages of his career.

The fast bowler from Uttar Pradesh then realised that the batsmen are adjusting to his swing as he isn’t bowling at express pace. Subsequently, Kumar worked hard to add pace to his arsenal and it helped him reap the rewards.

Kumar started bowling around 135-140 kmph and the positive results were palpable for him. The right-arm fast bowler has good control and he was able to deliver the goods.

“To be honest, the first couple of years I didn’t realise pace is something that needs to be added. As I kept playing, I realised with swing I needed to improve my pace because bowling late at 120kph or just 130kph, batsmen were adjusting to the swing. So, I wanted to increase the pace, but I didn’t know how to do it. That was the general trend to train hard and spend time in the gym,” Kumar said in a clip posted by SRH on Twitter.

“Fortunately, I was able to improve the pace and that really helped me in the later stages. So yes, when you have pace, not the express 140-plus, but bowling in the mid-130 kph helps maintain that swing and keep the batsman guessing,” the seamer added.

Meanwhile, recently it was reported that Bhuvneshwar Kumar doesn’t want to play Test cricket after he was not selected in India’s jumbo squad for the tour of England. However, the 31-year-old from Meerut squashed such reports and stated that he wants to play in all the three forms of the game.

“There have been articles about me not wanting to play Test cricket. Just to clarify, I have always prepared myself for all three formats irrespective of the team selection and will continue to do the same. Suggestion – please don’t write your assumptions based on ‘sources’!” Bhuvneshwar Kumar wrote in his tweet.