To be a great bowler, swing artiste Praveen Kumar wisecracks, “ball ko pyar karna padta hain.” You have to love the ball. He throws the example of his “chhota bhai and parivar”, Bhuvneshwar Kumar. “He is like a devoted lover, takes good care of the ball, keeps one side shining always, removes the dirt from it and keeps it like a treasure,” Praveen tells The Indian Express. And the ball loves him back. As on Monday night in Delhi and numerous other days and nights in his career nudging two decades. The ball behaved exactly as he willed it to. The movement was scant but sufficient. The batsmen, in a format set to their tunes, for once danced to the bowler’s notes. A bowler once considered too traditional for the shortest format is now among its most revered. He is the most successful fast bowler in IPL history (212 wickets); among contemporary seamers, only Jasprit Bumrah is thriftier (economy 7.68). Bhuvneshwar is the most prolific bowler in IPL Powerplays (88 wickets), with an economy rate of 6.58 to boot.…