When Yuzvendra Chahal changed his Warne-like bowling action
XtraTime Web Desk: India cricketer Yuzuvendra Chahal’s love for chess is no more a secret. The skinny leg spinner had the potentiality to make a career on chess but lack of sponsors forced him to decide otherwise. The U12 National Chess champion has represented the country in World Chess Championship in Greece and is also listed on World Chess Federation’s official site. Yuzvendra also grew an interest in cricket since his childhood days. He started playing cricket when he was 5-6 years old. His father was vice president of Haryana Cricket Association then and was also a selector. Most selection meetings took place at their residence. Watching a young Yuzuvendra growing an interest in cricket, his father decided to send him (Yuzuvendra) for training with the Haryana players in the morning. The senior Chahal also laid two wickets at their backyard where young Yuzvendra started bowling. During his early days, Yuzvendra modeled his bowling action like his role model Shane Warne. But he realized he was bowling too many short balls with that action. So, during an U19 match for Haryana, he changed his bowling action all of a sudden in the middle of his over. He took a short run up and delivered the ball. Next match he picked 5 wickets with that same action, which has given him the recognition of a premier leg spinner of Team India. There are a lot of jokes about Chahal’s batting as well on social media. But very few knows that scored a 100 in an U19 game. He bailed his team out of trouble after his side was reduced to 90/7. He ended up scoring 135 runs. He also scored 1000 runs for Haryana U19 team. Yuzvendra credits a lot of his international success to his India and RCB captain Virat Kohli. According to him, Kohli has always given him the freedom to express himself on the field. Chahal has so far picked 91 wickets from 52 ODI’s while in T20 format he has 52 dismissals under his belt from 42 matches.