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Sunrisers Hyderabad's seasoned pace bowler Bhuvneshwar Kumar on Sunday praised his younger pace colleague Umran Malik, saying watching him bowl fast 'is a joy'.
Bhuvneshwar (3/22) and Umran (4/28) combined to bundle out Punjab Kings for 151 in their IPL game at the DY Patil Stadium in Navi Mumbai, paving the way for SRH's seven-wicket victory.
Asked about Umran, India seamer Bhuvneshwar said in a lighter vein, "More than (Umran) helping me, it means I am a target as batters think I'm slower.
"But watching him bowl fast and get wickets is a joy. Hope the others going after me leads to wickets and not boundaries (smiles)."
Bhuvneshwar gave SRH a perfect start as he dismissed Punjab's opener and stand-in captain Shikhar Dhawan in the third over.
"There was no swing so I looked to hit back of a length. That was my plan against Shikhar as I knew he would step out and look for the boundary. I looked to hit a hard length and find the top edge and luckily that's what happened, I looked to play with my field as well.
"I try to bowl to the batter's weakness or to the ground's dimensions. The wicket and my skills are what I look at," Bhuvneshwar said.
Leading the team in the absence of regular skipper Mayank Agarwal, who missed the game due to a toe injury, Dhawan said losing early wickets hurt them.
"Mayank is better and he should be ready to be back. We were 30-40 runs short and lost too many early wickets which put us behind the game. The early wickets meant we had to hold wickets and that's where we had to mould our game," Dhawan said.
"There was a middle order recovery but the early wickets cost us. The wicket had extra-bounce to which we were late to adjust. The discussion with the batting will be to save wickets till the 13th-14th over, the bowlers are doing well.
"We need to put up complete performances and hopefully a 3-4 game turnaround which can change a season will come in," Dhawan said.