Yuzvendra Chahal | RCB’s unsung hero takes flight in national colours

05/25/2016

“Virat Kohli’s 54 takes RCB to the playoffs”—A fitting and accurate headline, but there is so much more to RCB than Kohli alone. KL Rahul, for example, has sneaked under the radar for the best part of the season. And then there is Kohli’s soon to be new Indian teammate, Yuzi Chahal.

Two matches, an economy rate bordering 11 and dropped from the side—that is how Yuzvendra Chahal started this year’s IPL. To put it politely, his performances at the start of the season were poor. 66 runs were conceded in 6.1 overs in those 2 matches, with a return of only 2 wickets. Unsurprisingly, he was dropped, and he remained on the sidelines for two more matches.

But what was surprising was the way in which he bounced back from the dead. Almost frozen out for the first 6 games(he was again dropped for the sixth game, after a not-so-impressive performance in the 5th) Chahal went top of the wicket-taking chart by the end of the group stages. The reward for which is a trip to Zimbabwe, to represent the country.

What’s most eye-catching is the fact that Yuzi is the only spinner in the top 10 wicket-takers in the IPL this season. His economy rate which was glaring in the double-figure mark after the first two games, has come down significantly—to below 8 an over. But if you thought his stats were impressive, wait till you read his journey to this pedestal.

(Also read why Chris Gayle may miss next year's IPL)

Yuzi Chahal started off as a chess master. Not just any ordinary one, Chahal had in fact represented India at the U-12 level in different competitions, in different parts of the world. World Youth Chess Championships in Greece, Asian Youth Chess Championships in Kozhikode, all at the tender age of 11, back in 2003. And it shows. Chahal plots his moves against the best batsmen in the world with acute knowhow of their batting style, and happens to be one step ahead all the time. One needs to take his memories back to last night when Dwayne Smith went berserk. The West Indian hit Chahal for 3 sixes in the match, but after the last one—off a skidding delivery, which was dispatched to the mid-wicket boundary—Chahal bowled a quicker one, second guessing the batsman. The ball was short and outside off but Smith didn’t judge the pace of the ball and toe-ended it to long-on.

"Chess helps me in plotting a batsman's dismissal. I try to be one step ahead, especially in T20 where the bowler has to think on his feet. When the batsman is going hard, I try to remain calm. My chess training helps me in staying focused with the job in hand," Chahal had said to the TOI recently. But if so talented and prodigal was Chahal, what made him switch to cricket?

Chess happens to be one of the costliest individual games to play and coming from a middle-class family, money wasn’t available in abundance for the Chahals. KK Chahal, Yuzi’s father, is an advocate in Jind district, Haryana, the same place Yuzvendra hails from. An advocate in Haryana, or in any part of the country for that matter, can not fund the enormous monetary demands of chess. Also the small matter of not finding too many good coaches, played a part in his decision.

“There were no coaches in north India and that's why he had to depend on the computer," senior Chahal said before adding, "However, for want of sponsors, he had to discontinue chess.”

So that was the end of chess as a profession, but the focus and single-headedness learnt back then, has not been lost over time. Chahal has also built a better artillery, maturing and growing without fail in his four seasons in the IPL. But success did not just come accidentally to the player, who has had average performances year-on-year in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, India’s domestic T20 tournament. But what changed his career was one performance in a big Champions Trophy final.

Back in 2011, Mumbai Indians had snapped up the leggie, but almost never played him through his 3-year contract. In fact, the 25-year old played only one IPL match from 2011 to 2013. But in the Champions League 2011, where Mumbai Indians didn’t send a lot of first team players in a team led by Harbhajan Singh, Chahal started every game. First, Chahal hit the winning runs in Mumbai’s second game to earn a tight 1-wicket win. Mumbai Indians did not look back from there and reached the final. So did Royal Challengers Bangalore. Mumbai scored 139 and they defended it. Chahal finished with figures of 2/9 in 3 overs, bowling 13 dots.

Royal Challengers Bangalore were sold on the player right then. But they had to wait till the auctions came around. Vijay Mallya and co. snapped him up for his base price of Rs 10 lacs in the 2014 IPL auctions, and the rest is history.

That history includes 12 wickets in his first season for RCB, followed up by 23 in his next and 20 this term. 54 wickets in 3 seasons of what is one of BCCI’s major cricketing events in the calendar has deservedly earned him a call-up. And his rise and rise is attributed to one Kiwi who had full faith in him throughout and has shown him the way.

“My wrist position has changed. My strides used to be longer earlier but now they're shorter. In T20 cricket, sometimes when you're bowling your body falls over and you don't realise it. But the coaches notice it and tell you. He’s been a big boost to me,” said the Haryana bowler about the coaching staff, that is headed by Daniel Vettori.

“Vettori sir tells us not to think about the ball you’ve been hit for. Forget about it and concentrate on the next ball. That really helps in a T20 game.”

In a season where spinners have barely left a mark on the tournament, Chahal has gone from strength to strength and that comes partly due to the confidence entrusted in him by his captain.

“Virat always tells me not to worry about being hit for sixes. He backs me to bowl whatever I want to bowl and keep a big heart,” Chahal had said of Virat after RCB’s game against CSK last season.

That attitude will take him places, and we will see the big heart come into the picture at the business end of the IPL, and when he dons the blue colours for India. With Jayant Yadav and Axar Patel the other two spinning options available to MS Dhoni in Zimbabwe, the chances are that Chahal could be spinning his way to being the first-choice spinner for India in the long run.

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