IPL 2020 | Vijay Shankar’s dismissal rendered possible by Kohli and AB’s advice, reveals Yuzvendra Chahal

Like he’s done for over half a decade for Virat Kohli’s Royal Challengers Bangalore, India’s premier leg-spinner Yuzvendra Chahal once again came to the rescue of the Reds in their season opener on Monday. With just one over left in his spell, and with SRH needing a mere 43 off their last 30 balls, skipper Kohli took the gamble and threw the ball to Chahal, and the leg-spinner delivered, knocking over both Jonny Bairstow and Vijay Shankar in consecutive deliveries. 

The Shankar dismissal was a beauty of a googly and in the post-match presentation, Chahal, who was named Man-of-the-Match for his otherworldly figures of 3/18, revealed that it was AB and Kohli, who forced him to bowl the wrong un. 

“When Vijay came Virat and AB told me to go for a googly and it worked. I put some mud on my hands to make sure there is no dew,” Chahal said in the post-match presentation.

While Chahal enjoyed a great night, his compatriot, Rashid Khan, however, had a pretty poor outing, going wicketless whilst conceding 31 runs. Chahal revealed that the secret to his success was to bowl stump-to-stump line and keep the pressure on the batsmen. 

“When I bowled my first over, I realized I need to bowl stump-to-stump line and backed myself. At one point they were batting well and I was trying to bowl loopy ones and wide of the reach which helped in building pressure. When I bowled to Pandey I was trying to outside off-stump with that field, but decided to bowl within the stumps because it is difficult to hit through the leg-side and with Bairstow I bowled little fuller and outside leg so that it becomes tough for him to target the leg-side with the turn away,” the leg-spinner revealed. 

The double-wicket over from Chahal where he gave away just six runs turned the game on its head as post the leg-spinner’s over, the chasing SRH side crumbled to a 10-run defeat.