India should have picked Rahul Chahar in squad for England tour, feels Danish Kaneria

At just 21 years of age, Rahul Chahar has been making great strides at the top level of cricket. The young leggie is a regular for the best franchise in the IPL, Mumbai Indians, and only two months ago took over the mantle from Yuzvendra Chahal as the country’s #1 T20I spinner, after replacing the latter in the second half of the England T20Is. He was, in fact, only three months ago named in the Indian Test squad as a standby, and the general consensus is that the youngster will inevitably someday become a go-to all-format bowler for the country.

“New Zealand has Ish Sodhi, a tall leg spinner and Virat Kohli always struggles against a leg spinner as we saw it with (Adam) Zampa. So, I feel if there is a place open for a leg spinner than Chahar, who has played for Mumbai Indians and India and has performed well, has googly, flipper and leg-spin, could have been useful,” Kaneria said.

Chahar’s first-class record is nothing more than decent - 69 wickets @ average 28.62 - but, according to Kaneria, India should have picked the 21-year-old solely because he is a leg-spinner. In the 20-man squad, India named four-finger spinners - Ashwin, Jadeja, Axar and Sundar - and Kaneria felt that the visitors blundered by opting against picking a wrist-spinner.

“India has selected quite a strong team. Overall, their squad is good. But the thing to note is that they have not selected a wrist spinner. They have finger spinners – Ashwin, Washington Sundar, Axar Patel and Ravindra Jadeja – but they don’t have a wrist spinner - a right arm leg-spinner,” Kaneria said. 

“Where there are seam conditions, a leg spinner is very useful and that's why I had a successful tenure when I played county cricket. So, it is a little concerning that there is no leg spinner in the team. Finger spinners can contain but having a finger spinner and a wrist spinner can make an impact on the team.”