Yuzvendra Chahal thrives in adversity

Yuzvendra Chahal is a product of his times — the times of IPL. Like his teammates in the recently concluded T20I series against England, Hardik Pandya and Jasprit Bumrah, he too has broken into the Indian team on the back of his IPL performances rather than taking the conventional first-class route, as is evident from his record: He has played only 27 first-class matches since his debut in 2009 — seven of those coming in this Ranji season. But it hasn’t been out of choice. For India’s latest spin sensation, who tied England up in knots on Wednesday with his googlies, flippers and leg-breaks on way to the third-best figures in T20Is, there was no vacancy in his state team, Haryana. In the context of Indian cricket, the words ‘Haryana’ and ‘Hurricane’ have been rendered inseparable by the legendary Kapil Dev. When you think of the former, you picture a medium pacer: Kapil mostly, but also Chetan Sharma; why, even Yograj Singh; and more recently, Joginder Sharma and Mohit Sharma. But of late, there has been a spin revolution of sorts in the state. While leg-spinner Amit Mishra burst onto the scene in the early 2000s and is still going strong, off-spinner Jayant Yadav also broke into the Test team last year. “I can’t recall any other period when three spinners from the same state were representing India at about the same time,” says Haryana’s director of coaching Ashwini Kumar. Indeed, one is hard-pressed to immediately come up with an appropriate answer. Back in the day, Vinoo Mankad, Bapu Nadkarni, Subhash Gupte and Manohar Hardikar (all Bombay) had careers that overlapped. The last three played in the same match as well in 1958, though Hardikar often bowled medium pace as well. The Karnataka troika of Anil Kumble, Sunil Joshi and Vijay Bharadwaj come to mind, but Bharadwaj was more of a batsman. Anyway, we get the drift. “You can say that, with regard to limited first-class appearances, Chahal has been rather unlucky to have been operating around the same time as Mishra and Yadav. Mishra, especially, because both of them are leggies. But then IPL is also cricket, isn’t it? He has made the most of the opportunities that he got there and is now an India player,” says Kumar. “And you can also look at it from another angle. The fact that there were bowlers like Mishra and Yadav in the team ahead of him, and another leg-spinner Rahul Tewatia waiting in the wings, that made Chahal raise his game. It made him work on his skills and made him mentally tough. Consequently, when he got a chance, he grabbed it.” While all of them have pushed each other to be better bowlers, their homeground has pushed all of them even more. A hostile homeground There is no first-class venue like Lahli in India. They say if you dig a couple of feet here, you will find water. In his farewell Ranji Trophy match in 2013, Sachin Tendulkar was taken by surprise with the bounce and movement off the pitch. Mohit Sharma bowled him for five in the first innings. Recalls Haryana opener Nitin Saini, who was part of that match: “In the second innings, Sachin paaji refused to take the heavy roller and we were all surprised. Because conventional wisdom says it would make the pitch more conducive to bat on. He made 79 not out. Later, he told us that since the water table is so high here, having the pitch rolled would have got the moisture out and made batting tough against the seamers. And we were like ‘we had played on this pitch all our lives and never thought of it’. That’s why he is what he is.” Put simply, it’s a fast bowler’s paradise and a batsman’s graveyard. As regards spinners, if they are at all playing here, they are never in the equation. Resultantly, before this past season which was played entirely on neutral venues, Haryana’s tweakers had only four away games to make their mark. This necessitated that they be on the top of their game at all times. Ashwini Kumar says it helped make Chahal relentless in his approach in T20. “During the course of those four overs, he never relaxes. He is always looking to take wickets. He is constantly thinking how to get the batsman out.” It’s interesting that Chahal’s home ground in first-class cricket aids fast bowlers while his home venue in the IPL, the Chinnaswamy Stadium, is a batsman’s dream. Here, too, he has turned adversity into an opportunity. “Whenever I come to Bangalore, I get a good vibe,” Chahal said after taking six-for-25 on Wednesday. “I feel at home over here. I’ve spent three seasons with Royal Challengers Bangalore now. As a spinner, you may go for more runs here because it’s a small ground, but at the same time you have more scope of getting wickets if you use your head. My plan is generally to try taking three wickets even if I go for 40 runs in the match.” Yesterday’s match also showed that Chahal and Mishra don’t always have to be competitors. They can be comrades-in-arms wreaking havoc on opposition batsmen. After all, it was Mishra’s tight bowling from one end that frustrated the England batsmen who then went after Chahal. And they walked right into Chahal’s trap.