Veteran India seamer Bhuvneshwar Kumar on Tuesday returned to the national side after nearly four years for the upcoming five-match T20I series in New Zealand later this month.
The 36-year-old Meerut-born Bhuvneshwar, who played a stellar role in Royal Challengers Bengaluru's back-to-back IPL titles with 17 wickets in the 2025 season and 28 wickets in 2026, tormented the best in the business with swing and seam movement in powerplay overs.
However, Bhuvneshwar's comeback didn't happen due to presence of Ajit Agarkar, who didn't believe in looking back despite performances. It is understood that Central Zone selector Rudra Pratap Singh never found much support when it came to the inclusion of Bhuvneshwar but once Agarkar was gone, it wasn't very difficult to convince Pragyan Ojha and the other colleagues about the value of the experienced seamer in the absence of Jasprit Bumrah.
With his experience, he can also guide the likes of Mayank Yadav and Prince Yadav, both of whom are being looked as potential contenders for the 2028 T20 World Cup in Australia. Apart from his 21 Test matches and 121 ODIs, Bhuvneshwar has played 87 T20Is and taken 90 wickets.
The squad announced by the BCCI, first after the exit of former chairman of selectors Ajit Agarkar and with Pragyan Ojha as interim chair, also has Varun Chakravarthy making a comeback after an injury had ruled him out of the Asian Games.
Most of the T20 squad that is currently featuring in the West Indies series picked itself but Bhuvneshear's comeback will inspire Mohammed Shami.
India will play five T20Is from October 22 to November 1 in New Zealand. The first match of the series is in Christchurch on October 22, followed by second on October 22 at the same venue. The third T20I, on October 27, will be played in Wellington while the fourth and fifth T20Is will be on October 30 and November 1 in Auckland and Hamilton, respectively.
India will also play a five-match ODI series and two-Test series after the T20I affair.
India's T20I squad: Shreyas Iyer (C), Abhishek Sharma, Sanju Samson (wk), Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, Ishan Kishan (wk), Tilak Varma (vc), Axar Patel, Shivam Dube, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Naman Dhir, Prince Yadav, Mayank Yadav, Arshdeep Singh, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Varun Chakaravarthy, Kuldeep Yadav.