Bhuvneshwar Kumar has one wicket for 139 runs, and India should still give him the last two T20Is in New Zealand
The series is won and the figures are ugly, but Auckland and Hamilton are the only place India can get a straight answer on their 36-year-old swing bowler.
Oct 28, 2026
Three games into his India comeback, Bhuvneshwar Kumar has one wicket for 139 runs. He went for 0 for 49 in the first T20I in Christchurch, 1 for 50 in the second and 0 for 40 in Wellington on Tuesday. That is 11.58 an over, in a series India have already won 3-0.
The easy reading is that the experiment is over. I don’t think it is, and the next two games are exactly where India should find out.
Why he was picked
Bhuvneshwar is 36. Before this tour his last T20I was in Napier in November 2022. He earned the recall in the IPL, where Royal Challengers Bengaluru won back-to-back titles in 2025 and 2026 and he became only the second bowler to take 200 IPL wickets. With Jasprit Bumrah and Hardik Pandya unavailable for the white-ball leg, Shreyas Iyer’s side needed someone who had done this before.
He has not looked like the bowler from those two IPL seasons. In the opener he gave away four in his first over, then Tim Seifert took 17 off his second. His one wicket so far was Daryl Mitchell, who leading-edged a knuckleball to Tilak Varma at cover-point in the second game. In Wellington, Mitchell made 89 not out and New Zealand reached 198 for 3.
The numbers need some context
None of that is a defence of 11.58 an over. But these have been run-soaked games. New Zealand made 225 for 4 in the first match and India still chased it down. In Wellington, India knocked off 199 in 13.2 overs. Jacob Duffy went for 26 in the first over of India’s chase.
Morne Morkel, India’s bowling coach, said before the Wellington game that he had a lot of sympathy for Bhuvneshwar, who came in with limited training because of the schedule. “You have to be able to allow him to just find his feet in some of the games,” Morkel said. Bhuvneshwar himself said afterwards that he had not chased the comeback, and that he was proud to have made it.
Give him Auckland and Hamilton
With the series sealed, India could rest him and bring back Mayank Yadav, who took 1 for 40 in the opener before Prince Yadav replaced him. That has an obvious appeal. My view is that it would waste the only useful thing these two dead rubbers can tell India.
Bhuvneshwar was not named in either of the ODI squads for this tour, so Eden Park on Friday and Hamilton on Sunday may be his last India games for a while. The next men’s T20 World Cup is in Australia and New Zealand in October and November 2028. He would be 38 by then, and it is fair to doubt he will be there. But if India are going to ask whether swing with the new ball still has a place in their T20 attack in these conditions, two more games, with three already behind him, will tell them more than the first three did.
If he goes for another 40 or 50 a game, the selectors have their answer. They should get it from him, not from the bench.