WATCH: Bhuvneshwar Kumar bowls ripping inswinger to clean up Jos Buttler for a golden duck

Time and time again, Bhuvneshwar Kumar has proved to be an invaluable, indispensable option for India with the new ball. He found movement straight away off a pitch where India had just scored 198, and completed the game with figures of 3-10-1. He bowled a lethal cocktail of both inswingers and outswingers, and most crucial of all, claimed the vital wicket of Jos Buttler.

An absolute peach from Bhuvneshwar Kumar. pic.twitter.com/OOq16tA4tl

— Mufaddal Vohra (@mufaddal_vohra) July 7, 2022

Also read: Hardik Pandya becomes first Indian to take 4 wickets, score 50 in men’s ODI’s

Buttler has been in some deadly form of late, a purple patch that few other batters see throughout the course of their career. He has been virtually unstoppable this past year in white-ball cricket, but today it was the veteran Bhuvneshwar Kumar who triumphed from the contest.

The dismissal was setup beautifully, right in the very first over. Bhuvneshwar fired down three searing outswingers to opener Jason Roy, one that narrowly missed his outside edge too. Roy finally managed to dig one out and race across for a single, giving Buttler strike for the first time since taking over as England’s official white-ball captain.

No doubt, Buttler would’ve liked a better welcome than the one he got. The very first ball he faced, he received an unplayable inswinger that zipped back into him. He couldn’t even get close to picking the line; it snaked through the gate and hit timber.