A few months had passed in calm silence. Bhuvneshwar Kumar and his physio Ramneesh Vohra had not let their association be disrupted by the snub that struck him 12 days after India’s 2022 T20 World Cup semi-final exit. He was taken off the national radar after a New Zealand tour. His 37 T20I wickets in 2022 remain the most by an Indian man in a calendar year.“We met regularly but never had a word about it for almost 2-3 months,” Ramneesh, a BCCI-qualified physiotherapist, tells The Indian Express from his clinic in Noida. “We never discussed what went wrong.”Bhuvneshwar’s stillness was perplexing, even for Ramneesh. His thoughts finally came out in the open one morning.“I want to be like that again,” Bhuvneshwar told Ramneesh. He pointed to a mobile screen that replayed the booming in-swingers that rattled Pakistan’s Nasir Jamshed and Mohammad Hafeez on his T20I and ODI debuts in December 2012 on a loop.That was 10 years earlier. The confidence had undeniably taken a hit. Could he bend the ball to his will again? “Will it be possible?” he asked Ramneesh.View this post on InstagramBhuvneshwar wasn’t searching for swing to wear the India blues again. “He just wanted to enjoy and give his best no matter where he played. The chat was all about that,” Ramneesh recalls.Story continues below this adThe hard yards put in, alongside Bhuvneshwar’s personal trainer Surya Yadav, helped the veteran seamer complete a circle on Tuesday. At 36, he found himself back in the T20I squad for India’s New Zealand tour, the country where he played his last international game in November ’22.***The platform was laid by two victorious IPL seasons with Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB). Nerve-less control in the Powerplay and at the death yielded him 45 wickets at a sub-9 economy, the best among all pacers in the league over that period.Ramneesh first crossed paths with Bhuvneshwar during the COVID lockdown at a Noida academy in 2020. Surya’s technical inputs came in about four years later.View this post on Instagram“He never wanted to increase pace. He only wanted to regain his swing. We first put in work to help regain that swinging capacity. The technical aspects were handled by Surya. I would handle his joints, which had to be opened up first. Only then could he proceed to strengthening, do functional activities and later enter game-pattern activities. His priority was to get his foot landing at the crease like in 2012, when his contact was on his toe and not the entire back foot,” says Ramneesh.Story continues below this adThe transformation was in full flight during RCB’s triumphant Playoffs run in May. Two near-140 kph deliveries froze Shubman Gill and Sai Sudharsan, Bhuvneshwar getting them with his rejuvenated bouncer and nip-backer.“Earlier, he used to be a bowler, like many others. Now, he can run a marathon if he wants,” Ramneesh says proudly.The sacrifices were big but not impossible for Bhuvneshwar, who, according to Ramneesh, has had “no fun activities or parties” outside cricket.“Zero sugar, zero gluten and zero lactose for the last six years. He has shed fat from his visceral organs. That’s the main thing.”Story continues below this adHe weighed 80 kg earlier, with 22-25 percent body fat. Now at 75 kg and 16 percent body fat, Bhuvneshwar has improved his muscle mass.“That’s the beauty when you develop a bond with an athlete”, Ramneesh adds. FILE – Bhuvneshwar Kumar was called-up in India’s T20I side for New Zealand tour. (Sportzpics)The two have transcended the player-doctor relationship to “brothers” and neighbours in the same society of the city. “We strictly keep our work off social media and often train at my home or his,” he says.Ashish Winston Zaidi raves about Bhuvneshwar’s comeback. Zaidi, a former Uttar Pradesh seamer, retired in 2006, a year before Bhuvneshwar’s debut. The two later caught up regularly during the UPT20 league.Story continues below this adIn 2009, Zaidi’s straight talk was Bhuvneshwar’s greatest counsel, a day before he dismissed Sachin Tendulkar for his only duck in the Ranji Trophy and burst to fame before the IPL.View this post on Instagram“Maine bola usse Tendulkar jaan thodi ley lega (I told him Tendulkar wasn’t going to kill him). He was a nervous teenager then but a very mature cricketer now,” recounts Zaidi.“He made a mistake somewhere trying to increase pace. Moving back to swing, and line and length have helped his comeback. His bowling amazed me this season.””Nowadays, a lot of boys are bowling quick but have no swing. If you look at the batting tracks today, if you don’t have swing or movement, you are in trouble,” the former cricketer says.Story continues below this adRamneesh recalls only one instance of Bhuvneshwar expressing disappointment over his exit from the national team in late 2022, when “Bhuvi sir” arrived as the chief guest on his revamped clinic’s inauguration.“Someone asked him why he got the ‘keeper up to the stumps during that Adelaide (T20 World Cup) semifinal (against England). He said that it wasn’t his call and the decision didn’t go well.”“He always used to say, ‘I don’t want to think about it or its consequences. I am not doing anything to get somewhere.’”But he got himself somewhere on Tuesday. Back in an India shirt, with the avenues opening up further as they enter a 50-over World Cup year.Story continues below this ad37: Bhuvneshwar’s T20I wickets in 2022 are still the most for an Indian man in a calendar year.45: Bhuvneshwar is the highest wicket-taker in the IPL since 2025.105: T20I matches Bhuvneshwar would have missed by the start of the New Zealand tour, the most for an Indian between two appearances.363: Bhuvneshwar is the highest wicket-taker among Indian pacers in all T20s