After a prolong injury layoff, India's star pacer Deepak Chahar is gearing up to make his comeback in the upcoming in the Chennai Super Kings' fold for Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023. After staying away from cricket field for the entire 2022, both for Team India and CSK, Chahar is preparing to go all guns blazing in the 16 edition of the glitzy league after recovering from the stress fracture and most recently a quad grade 3 tear.
In an exclusive interview with Sports Tak, the 30-year-old expressed his excitement to reunite with CSK squad and is already visualising bowling in front of a packed Ahmedabad crowd.
“I have bowled the first ball of the IPL season on three occasions and soon as the schedule for the 2023 edition was announced, I saw we have the inaugural match that will give me a chance to bowl the first ball on fourth occasion and I am pretty excited about. I am visualising myself bowling in front of a packed Ahmedabad crowd,” Chahar told Sports Tak.
Chahar was asked about his comeback to cricket after a long layoff due to persistent injury to which he said,"IPL is a barometer and thus if I want to make a comeback in International cricket, performing in IPL will be crucial. Performance in every tournament matters but since IPL is the biggest stage, it gives an edge to the selection process too."
Chahar also missed the all-important T20 World Cup in 2022. He last played for India in the second ODI in Bangladesh, where he was injured after bowling three overs. Chahar could only play 15 games for India in 2022 and was also ruled out of the T20 World Cup due to injury.
Chahar, who was accompanied by his wife Jaya Bhardwaj, also talked about the the new venture he is about to board on. The couple is set to launch a gaming APP to kick off their entrepreneurial journey.
Question: Struggle with fitness is finally over? What lies ahead for you?
Answer: “Two things ahead for me - First is IPL as I have worked on my bowling both in the domestic circuit and in practice sessions and the second is the gaming APP I am launching with my wife. We have been working on the APP in the free time we had,” Chahar said.
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Question: You come from a management world and in the current period where cricketers are busy promoting the APP for sponsorship reasons, how did the idea occur to you to launch your own APP?
Answer: “When we met we decided to launch something of our own as we both are passionate about gaming and there is a huge scope in the market. Convincing Deepak was a huge task. He didn't take up the idea of promoting other Apps as he believed in me and my idea which is about to come true in the coming few days. We have discussed everything from the colour to other plans and made a good team together,” the couple said.
The Rajasthan pacer, who will be looking to make it India's fold for the ODI World Cup 2023, last featured in the just concluded Ranji Trophy match against Services, which remained his only appearance. Since making his India debut in July 2018, he has managed to play in 13 ODIs and 24 T20Is.
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