Yuzvendra Chahal Proves Subtle Leg-Spin has a Place in T20 Cricket

Yuzvendra Chahal, with all his smarts and courage, has gone past another bowler, who used his smartness and variations to reach the top of the wickets chart in the IPL. Against Hyderabad, with four wickets, Chahal went level with the great Dwayne Bravo, and a game later, he took the spot as the leading wicket-taker in IPL History in considerably lower games.

Years ago, Yuzvendra Chahal struggled to make it into the Mumbai Indians line-up. He was on the bench for three years, playing just one game. A decade later, and after playing at the Chinnaswamy for seven years, Yuzvendra Chahal has proved that his style of bowling can bring wickets at a fast pace.

Among the other experienced spinners including the likes of Yuzvendra Chawla, Ashwin, Harbhajan, Amit Mishra and Jadeja, Yuzvendra Chahal has a far better strike rate and has played fewer games. Comparatively, there is Ravichandran Ashwin, his partner at the Royals, with a better economy rate. Ashwin though is a spinner who uses more variations than any other spinner in the league. He has multiple types of Carrom balls, a really good off-spinner, and maintains a hard-to-hit line.

Chahal on the other hand feeds of batters temptations. While he uses his own set of smarts to deceive batters with his wrong’un, it is often the flight that gets him wickets. The flight he uses though is a skill of its own. Considering the nature of batters and the grounds he has played on, flighting the ball to a big-hitter could often cause trouble, especially if the batter gets it right. He keeps his speeds on the lower end and dares the batters to take him on.

His flight is a reason as to why Chahal often gets hit for some really big sixes. His leg-break though, at a lower speed gets a lot of rip, and that is where he finds his weapon as he deceives batters very efficiently. His economy does make him seem a defensive bowler, but wickets have been his strength. He knows how to cut of one side of the ground and makes sure the ball stays in line with the stumps. His lower bounce has its disadvantages as only Piyush Chawla has conceded more sixes than Yuzvendra Chahal, but the mis-hits are enough reward for the risks being taken.

Against SRH he gave a live example of his risk reward style. After being cut for four by Klaasen, Yuzvendra Chahal slowed down the next delivery, as Klaasen came down again, only to find the ball on the shorter side. His technique of dropping pace is very common, but batters still manage to fall into his trap out of sheer habit. Beyond his style of bowling though, the way Yuzvendra Chahal has been used is a factor.

More often than not, Chahal, and leg-spinnners in general are at their most effective when batters are going after them. As a result, sometimes they end up going on wicket-taking sprees, and on other days they end up with really bad figures. With bad figures, Chahal did have his own setbacks, and his performance in 2021 was an example. In 2021, with his style of leg-spin slightly, Chahal found himself falling behind on the leg-spin ladder.

The setback though helped as Chahal came back stronger in the upcoming season. He kept his core style of bowling the way it was and added some more variations in pace which has helped him now leapfrog Dwayne Bravo as the leading wicket-taker in the IPL.