Indian fast bowler Bhuvneshwar Kumar, who endured a hamstring injury while playing against Pakistan on Sunday, will be ruled out for a maximum of three matches in the ongoing edition of the ICC Cricket World Cup, captain Virat Kohli has confirmed.

Kumar sustained the injury when he was bowling the fourth ball of his second over and had to walk off the field in the second innings of the match at the Old Trafford Stadium. After leaving the field, he was assessed by team physio Patrick Farhart and he was kept off the field, with Vijay Shankar and Hardik Pandya there to bowl his remaining overs.

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“Bhuvi’s case looks like a niggle, a case of slipping on the footmarks. It doesn’t look too serious at the moment and looks like he could recover in a couple of games from now, maximum of three games,” Kohli said at the post-match presentation ceremony after India thrashed Pakistan by 89 runs (DLS method) at the Old Trafford.

This means that Mohammad Shami, whom many cricket experts had wanted in India’s team at the first place will finally get a match in time in India’s upcoming matches.

“He is going to be an important factor for us so hopefully he can recover in time. But we have Shami with us and it shouldn’t be much of a worry for us. Even Bhuvi doesn’t think his niggle is too bad and that time would heal it,” he added.

It is worth noting that Virat had praised Rohit Sharma for his outstanding hundred against Pakistan. Virat said the hundred clearly showed why Rohit is such a “good ODI Player”.

Virat was also in praise of Kuldeep Yadav who picked up two important wickets to assert India’s dominance over Pakistan.

“Kuldeep Yadav was brilliant. Those guys were only trying to play him out. A longer spell helped in that situation and he was getting into rhythm. They were thinking that he would go out of the attack sooner rather than later,” said Kohli.

Virat Kohli, in particular, mentioned the ball to dismiss Babar Azam.

“That ball to dismiss Babar was just outstanding with the drift, the turn and just beating the batsman batting so well. This is the best he has been bowling since coming to England and, him confident with Chahal, is going to be an important factor for us in the tournament,” he added.

With the win against Pakistan on Sunday, India stand on the third place in the points Table of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 with seven points from their four matches and are all set to play Afghanistan on 22 June, Saturday in their World Cup campaign ahead.