We are ready for England and Australia, says Bhuvneshwar

Paceman feels variations are key to his success in the shortest format

Indian team's baptism by fire during the tour of South Africa augurs well for the tougher assignments against England and Australia later this year, feels pace spearhead Bhuvneshwar Kumar.

After starting the tour with a 1-2 loss in the Tests, India ended the bilateral series on a high after notching up a thrilling seven-run win in the third T20 international on Saturday for a 2-1 result. The visitors had also recorded a dominating 5-1 win series win in the one-dayers.

"We don't want to be too greedy and we are happy with these two trophies. Hopefully next time we will win all the three trophies," said Bhuvneshwar, who was awarded the Man of the Series. This tour has been brilliant, particularly talking about Test series. Yes, we lost two matches, but they were very close. We could have also lost 3-0 or won 2-1 instead. But it gives us confidence in whatever way we have played, and we are ready to go to England and Australia, and do better there," he added.

Bhuvneshwar said variations and timing were key to his success in T20 cricket.

"T20 cricket is all about using variations and timing has to be perfect. Whatever knuckle ball I have bowled, I wanted batsmen to go after that. That way you can get wickets and that's one of the main reasons why I have been successful in power plays," he said.

Pointing out the difference in the formats, Bhuvneshwar said one has to be proactive in the shorter formats of the game. "T20 is such a format that finishes quickly, and you only have four overs. If there are three bad balls in one over you will go for runs and your whole analysis suffers. The team is on backfoot because of three balls. So, each and every ball becomes very important. It makes the bowler think. Every ball has to be proper and you have to execute the plan properly," said Bhuvneshwar.

"In Test matches you don't have to do something different as compared to ODIs or T20 cricket. It's not much variation but it's about line and length. When you come to one-day cricket you look for yorkers and slower ones. It is never easy to switch between formats but it is all about practice and preparation. You need 2-3 overs to adjust when you play but when it comes to T20s, you have to be proactive and you cannot react after what the batsman does," he pointed out.

India's strength in this T20 series has been powerplays. They have looked to dominate with both bat and ball, particularly in the last game as Bhuvneshwar bowled a tight first spell to leave South Africa at 25/1 in six overs at Newlands.

However, Bhuvneshwar said the key to India's success was in bowling well throughout the innings. Power plays are very important in both formats, but you cannot win matches based on power plays alone. If any team is down 4-5 wickets in the power plays but you still end up giving too many runs in the end, then you cannot win.

"Power play is an important factor to win matches but you have to contain the runs in middle overs and you have to do brilliantly in the death overs," said Bhuvneshwar, who played an instrumental role as India beating South Africa by 7 runs to win the three-match T20I series 2-1.