Ahmedabad: Yuzvendra Chahal who made it to the Blues as the wicket-taking bowler in T20 format seems has lost the form of bagging wickets. In the last 15 months, Chahal has just managed to pick 10 wickets from 12 games.
Talking about the ongoing games against England, he has been expensive and hasn’t guaranteed his inclusion in the playing XI. The only positive for him has been the first T20I against Australia in Canberra, where he bagged three wickets in his four over-spell.
In the ongoing series, he has given away 119 runs in 12 overs, leaking runs at 9.91 an over.
The Haryana leg-spinner has been known as someone who can bowl with heart and fight for his wickets even after going for runs. But lack of variety seems to be restricting his bowling. The leg-spinner had in the past relied heavily on his wide delivery especially when MS Dhoni was the wicket-keeper.
Batsmen, while being tempted to hit him, have often fallen either stumped or mistimed their shots and holed out. Of late, especially after Dhoni's retirement, Chahal has lost that confidence as the batsmen have been able to read that strategy of his.
In the second T20I of the current series, his most economical in the last five games, he tried bowling wide but other than conceding extras it didn't result in anything. Chahal has got two of three wickets leg-before while one was off a reverse sweep.
Chahal now has an opportunity to scale his way up in the list of bowlers with the most T20I wickets. The right-arm spinner, who currently has 62 wickets from 48 matches, is at 17th in the list, behind Imran Tahir (63), Dale Steyn (64) and Stuart Broad (65).
(With inputs from IANS)
