What is Yuzvendra Chahal’s new record?

India’s ace leg-spinner Yuzvendra Chahal might have given quite a few runs in the ongoing first T20I against West Indies, but the leg-spinner has achieved a huge T20I milestone by equaling the record which was held by Ravichandran Ashwin. In his four overs spell Chahal gave 36 runs and scalped two wickets as Windies reached 207 runs in their allotted 20 overs.

Doing so, Chahal took his total tally of T20I wickets to 52, which is the joint-highest by an Indian bowler in the shortest format, along with Ashwin. But while Ashwin had taken 46 matches to reach the mark, Chahal achieved it in his 35th T20I match.

Meanwhile, Shimron Hetmyer struck a quick half-century as West Indies produced a fine batting display to post a challenging 207 for 5 against India in the first T20 International of the three-match series. An aggressive Hetmyer made 56 off 41 balls which was studded with two boundaries and four hits over the fence to hold West Indies from one end after being sent into bat.

He first added 37 runs with Brandon King (31 off 23 balls) and then shared 71 runs with skipper Kieron Pollard (37 off 19 balls) to lay the base for the West Indies total. The Indians, however, were far from impressive on the field as Washington Sundar and Rohit Sharma dropped a few catches.

But a double breakthrough by leg-spinner Yuzvendra Chahal (2/36) in the 18th over put a check on West Indies’ scoring rate. Hetmyer was the first to depart in the first delivery of the 18th over when he gave a simple catch to Rohit at deep backward square and then a ball later, Pollard was cleaned up by Chahal. Jason Holder (24 not out off 9 balls) and Dinesh Ramdin (11 not out off 7) remained unbeaten as West Indies scored 63 runs off the last five overs.