MATCH STORIES
Follow UsIf you are a spinner, chances are high that you might have had nightmares about bowling at the M Chinnaswamy in Bengaluru or the Wankhede in Mumbai.
These two small grounds with lightning-quick outfields and imposing stands that are usually choked full of fans during IPL games are nothing but cauldrons of calamity for them.
A combined average of 30.1 and a strike rate of 22 for spinners in the IPL at both these venues is enough to tell you that spinners come here to be eaten for breakfast, lunch and dinner. This stat looks even worse if you remove the numbers of one spinner from here.
You see, Yuzvendra Chahal not only survives but also thrives at these cauldrons of calamities. Amongst all spinners who have bowled at these two venues in the IPL, he takes the least number of deliveries to pick up a wicket here (16.3) while giving less than eight runs/over.
Keep these two venues aside, and even then, these are splendid figures for a spinner in the most competitive T20 competition on earth.
Hence, when he picked up three wickets and gave just 11 runs in his four overs against the Mumbai Indians at their home, there was hardly any surprise. Chahal’s greatness as a spinner in the IPL doesn't require a hagiography to be recognised. It’s a universal truth by now.
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Trent Boult and Nandre Burger’s incessant attack had already breached Mumbai's batting order's inner and outer walls. What remained was a clean-up job of destroying the few standing ramparts and a single minaret in the form of Hardik Pandya.
The Rajasthan Royals ace spinner came with a reputation for breaching big batting orders, and Chahal lived up to this reputation.
Hardik Pandya’s ego has been his falling against Chahal quite often. Pandya knows it. But the match situation (MI 76/4 in 9.2 overs) required him to up the ante. Chahal had anticipated it. Being a predominantly leg-break bowling spinner, he was always going to turn the ball away from Pandya’s bat.
A desperate heave for a six ended with the wicket of MI’s captain and did nothing to improve his head-to-head record against Chahal, as the leggie got him for the fourth time in 13 innings.
Next, Chahal targeted the left-handed Tilak Varma by keeping the ball out of his hitting arc and bowling wide. He also bowled the googly, which took the ball further away from the leftie, and his attempted cut could only balloon straight into Ashwin’s hand at short third.
Then, for his third scalp of the night, he decided to just titillate Gerald Coetzee by offering a dolly of a leg break at 76 kmph, and Coetzee’s immature capitulation saw him send the ball straight into Hetmyer’s hands.
Playing with the batter’s ego. Sheer tactical smarts by bowling it wide and slow (look at the beehive above). And then having the chutzpah to dangle a carrot in front of someone capable enough to gobble quite a few of those.
This was a spinner operating at the peak of his powers. A spinner who has taken half of his wickets this season against a negative matchup (lefties). A spinner who once again showed the world that he is not just a spinner but an alchemist who had mastered the potion to neutralise the threat in the cauldron of calamities.
But wait. Yuzi Chahal might be clad in pink, and his bowling might be in the pink of health, but not everything’s pink in his career.
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An average of 25.09 and an economy of 8.19 while playing for the Indian national team are below Chahal’s overall numbers in the IPL. But still these numbers aren’t bad enough for him to not play a single game in a T20 World Cup for India.
Loss of form before the 2021 World Cup, and then India preferring Ashwin and Axar Patel over him in 2022 in Australia, made sure of that.
However, there’s no denying the fact that there’s a gap between Chahal’s performances in pink and his performances in blue. Even his numbers at Chinnaswamy and Wankhede are much poorer when playing for India (just three innings, though), as he has leaked runs at almost ten runs/over.
Moreover, the rise of Kuldeep Yadav 2.0 has also gone against him, as India would find it difficult to slot two specialist spinners in the eleven yet again for the upcoming World Cup - an issue that has persisted throughout his T20I career.
Six wickets in the first three games in IPL 2024 would have told the Indian selectors that Chahal is still good enough to be considered for the flight that would fly off to the United States of America after the IPL.
However, at least currently, the sky definitely seems to be pink and not blue for Yuzvendra Chahal.
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