The duality of the Indian leg-spinner can be seen through his astute quality with the ball which also used to get deployed in the field of chess. The idea of his genius on the field with his spinning deliveries gets only reinforced as Chahal has checkmated his opponent on the pitch of cricket and off the pitch in the field of chess. Today, the skinny yet awfully effective multi-faceted spinner is India’s first-choice bowler who is trusted to lead the spin attack from the front in white ball cricket. He lords over the batters with his bamboozling spin and finds himself at the forefront of the Indian team in both the T20IS and ODIs. The much-valued spinner has entrenched himself as a marquee player at the IPL that any team would go gaga over in regards to having him at their disposal, we take a peek at the canny bowler’s journey so far.
Early life
Yuzvendra Chahal also known as Yuzi by his teammates was born in the sports fertile land of Haryana on July 23, 1990, where it’s only fitting for budding Indian athletes to emerge. During the days when he is away from national duties, he has a crack at the domestic team of Haryana he plays for.
Chahal didn’t take a shine to cricket at first, instead, he found himself immersed in chess growing up. He represented India at the junior level in chess but soon had to jack it in as he couldn’t afford to play the sport as money was scarce and sponsors were hard to find. He found his calling in cricket as a leg-break bowler.
On 22 December 2020, he walked down the aisle with Dhanashree Verma who is his wife and by profession a dentist. Dhanashree is also widely popular for her dancing skills on Instagram and was a Tiktok star.
Career in embryo
As life veered in a different direction where he is required to be on his feet 24/7 the duration of the sport, Chahal took the u-19 Cooch Behar Trophy by storm in 2009 as he spun his spin web and ended up as the leading wicket-taker of the tournament.
IPL and International breakthrough
His career went on to ascend the ladder of greater heights when he got picked by Mumbai Indians at the IPL in 2011. However, over his tenure, he was for the most part of his career warming the bench or helping the players on the field hydrate. Interestingly he was still made to tag along in the squad for Champions League. The Champions League was rather kinder on the scrawny leg spinner where he was rearing to go and appeared in all the games and delivered a memorable spell of 3-0-9-2 on the night of the final against Royal Challengers Bangalore which the MI went on to win. Things seemed to have gone back to square one for him as after that in the next two seasons with MI he featured only in one game. It was time for the spin wizard to part ways with MI and gear up for a fresh start with Royal Challengers Bangalore after getting picked for his base price of 10 lakhs in 2014. Chahal with RCB rose to prominence as his off-spin made him indispensable for the franchise. Chahal was the highest wicket-taker for RCB for two years since 2015, a player without whom the RCB couldn’t make do. In the mega auction of the IPL 2022, he was roped in by Rajasthan Royals where he ended up with the purple cap with the engraving of 27 wickets.
The success at the IPL gave rise to a national team call-up for the tour of Zimbabwe in June 2016 with Malcum Waller becoming his maiden wicket in T20IS.
His career was now thrust to play against the top dogs of the game when he became the first Indian player to take a five-wicket haul in T20IS. The landmark feat came against England on February 1, 2017, with figures of 6/25.
His performance was played with the same rhythm in the year 2017 when he became the highest wicket-taker of the year with 23 batters dismissed.
Two years later he displayed his dynamism in ODIS when he made repeated history with his second one-day international five-wicket haul with a spell of 6/25 against Australia joining the exalted company of veteran Ajit Agarkar with the best figures against Australia in 2003-4. These prolific figures came at the MCG which India won with Australia being reduced to 230 in 48.5 overs and winning the match by 7 seven wickets.
