Ace spinner Yuzvendra Chahal has been in good run of form in the IPL, and has been turning it on with the Rajasthan Royals this season. Currently, he has seven wickets in three matches for Rajasthan Royals in IPL 2022, and the team will hope that he continues to add to that tally.
While on the field, most opponents would not like him, off the field he’s quite a fun personality and easy going as well.
However, during his stint with the Mumbai Indians in 2013, Chahal had to deal with an unsavoury incident when a player got drunk.
In a video shared by Rajasthan Royals on Twitter, Chahal along with teammates Karun Nair and R Ashwin narrated some of their stories. Chahal spoke about an incident that "not many people know about." He narrated an incident from 2013, when he had a close shave in a party after a match.
"My story, some people know about. I have never spoken about this, I never shared this. In 2013, I was with the Mumbai Indians. We had a match in Bengaluru. There was a get together after that. There was a player who was very drunk, I will not take his name. He was very drunk; he was looking at me and he just called me. He took me outside and he dangled me from the balcony," Chahal told Ashwin and Nair in the video.
"My hands were around him. Had I lost my grip, I was on the 15th floor. Suddenly many people who were there came and got the situation under control. I kind of fainted. They gave me water, then I realised how responsible you should be if you go out anywhere. So, this was one incident where I felt I made a narrow escape. Had there been the slightest of mistake, I would have fallen down," he added.
Chahal did not have a lot of success with MI, the most decorated team in the tournament, and played just one game for them. He moved to Royal Challengers Bangalore after that and played 8 years with them, picking 139 wickets.
It Happened Earlier Too
Earlier on in the year, on a podcast published by his earlier team Royal Challengers Bangalore, the spinner had recounted an incident from 2011 where then Mumbai team-mates, James Franklin and Andrew Symonds, had tied him up, taped his mouth, left him in a room and forgot about him for a whole night.
"It happened in 2011, when Mumbai Indians won the Champions League. We were in Chennai. He (Symonds) had had a lot of 'fruit juice' (laughs). I don't know what he was thinking, but he and James Franklin got together and tied my hands and legs and said, 'no, you've to open'," Chahal said.
"They were so lost that they taped my mouth and forgot about me completely during the party. Then they all left and, in the morning, someone came to clean [the room] and saw me, and called a few others and untied me. They asked me since when I had been there, and I said, 'I've been here the whole night'. So that became a funny story."
Chahal also said that neither Symonds nor Franklin had apologised to him.
"No, they said when you drink so much juice you don't remember stuff in the morning (laughs)." Chahal and Symonds have, however, developed a relationship over time.
Mumbai Indians was Chahal’s first foray into the world of the IPL.
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