Bowling smarts makes Yuzvendra Chahal one of the best in business, feels Aakash Chopra
Cricketer-turned-analyst Aakash Chopra has stated that it is Yuzvendra Chahal’s bowling smarts that makes him one of the best in the business, despite lacking a viciously turning leg-spinner or a threatening googly in his arsenal. Chopra also noted that Chahal doesn’t bowl as many boundary balls.
He doesn’t have the mysterious nature in his bowling like his partner-in-crime Kuldeep Yadav, nor the accuracy-at-pace like the left-arm spin of Ravindra Jadeja. And yet, Chahal manages an average in the mid-20s across all white-ball formats, whether international or IPL or at the domestic level — with a strike-rate that guarantees a-wicket-a-game in T20s and nearly twice that much in one-dayers. According to Chopra, it all comes down to how the 29-year-old uses his skills to be effective that stands him out among the rest of the current crop of spinners.
“It is his bowling smarts that make him one of the best in the business. It's not that he doesn't have the variations a leg-spinner needs, but what sets him apart from his peers is that he knows how and when to use each variation. And the fact that he doesn't bowl easy boundary balls makes him even more efficient,” Chopra wrote in his column for ESPNCricinfo.
“Years of playing in the IPL at the so-called graveyard for bowlers, the Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru, has taught Chahal an important lesson in the art of survival as a spinner - stay away from the line in which the bat is likely to come down. He uses the drift to push the ball towards the blind spot outside the batsman's leg stump and then turns it in ever so slightly from that line to force an error.
"Since he doesn't fire these in, a batsman can't just use the pace and play the angle to hit over square leg or fine leg. The slow turner from that outside-leg line leaves the batsman with very few boundary options. Chahal uses the same line when the batsman steps out since it keeps the ball away from the batsman's arc,” he explained.
Chopra further analyzed Chahal’s mode of dismissals to nail down the point of his accuracy of keeping it within the stumps at most times.
“Let's look at his modes of dismissal - 25% of his wickets are lbw, 11% are bowled and 11% are stumpings. The rest, of course, are caught at various fielding positions. A total of 36% of dismissals from lbw and bowled suggests a lot of his deliveries finish within the stumps, and perhaps a lot of the googlies do too. But the 11% stumpings suggest he is also able to take the ball away a lot,” Chopra added.
