Who is the all-time highest wicket-taker for India in T20I cricket? Who is the all-time highest wicket-taker in the IPL? Who is the all-time highest wicket-taker for RCB? Who is the highest wicket-taker in IPL 2023?
All these questions have the same answer, Yuzvendra Chahal. Yet, if there's a poll to determine the best Indian T20 spinner of this century, it's unlikely that Chahal would come out trumps.
After all, how could a reel-making, PJ-cracking prankster be classified as a legend? It's when you begin to put two and two together and dig a bit deeper through his stats and achievements, you realise that beneath the jokester rests India's most successful T20 spinner.
In fact, Chahal has more IPL wickets than each of Piyush Chawla, Amit Mishra, R Ashwin, Sunil Narine, Harbhajan Singh and Ravindra Jadeja, when he has actually played fewer matches than all of them. Better than Harbhajan, woah? The noughties loyalists might begin to shudder at the mere thought!
But going by the reactions after the leg spinner took Rajasthan Royals to a crucial victory against Kolkata Knight Riders at the Eden Gardens on 11 May, which saw RR not only climb to the third spot in the leaderboard but get a potentially decisive NRR boost, perhaps Chahal is beginning to get his due.
"I think it's time to give him the tag of legend. We are grateful to have him in the franchise. Never have to speak to him, give him the ball and he knows what to do. He bowls at the death as well, very pleasing for me as a captain," RR skipper Sanju Samson said after the team's 9-wicket win.
Standing at 5 feet and 6 inches, the classical leg spinner appears to be one of the last practitioners of an art that almost looks passé in T20 cricket. Before England batters carted Chahal and Kuldeep Yadav to all parts of the park in the 2019 World Cup fixture at Edgbaston, it was the slow pace and loopy trajectory which worked like a charm for both spinners.
However, post that, it appears as if Chahal has been in a perpetual internal conflict about whether to stick to his loopy leggies, which have brought him so much success in the past, or adapt to the changing landscape of the game.
Look around, and almost all leading wrist spinners in the format rush the batters for pace. The release is quick and snappy, the ball zips through the surface, and hardly affords any time to the batter. If a batter can read it from the hand – another dying art – kudos to him, else, good luck judging the spitting cobra off the surface.
Rashid Khan, arguably the best T20 spinner going around, is the template whom many around the world try to follow. Even the new Indian crop of wrist spinners like Ravi Bishnoi and Rahul Chahar belong to the same stable.
After all, it was his loopy leggies which saw Chahal lose his place to Rahul Chahar for the 2021 T20 World Cup. The slower surfaces of the UAE needed a spinner 'who could find grip and deliver with slightly more speed', or so he was told by then chief selector Chetan Sharma.
Chahal was distraught. And understandably so. He wasn’t dropped even once for almost five years before being chucked out of the squad hot on the heels of the showpiece event.
“The team was supposed to be announced at 9:30 and then it got delayed by a bit. I swear I did not know that my name wouldn’t come. When the list came, I did not say anything to anyone for a few minutes. My wife was asking me about the announcement and I sent her the screenshot. The dinner had arrived but I didn't feel like eating anything that night.” Chahal recounted.
To make matters worse, he was not retained by RCB either, despite being their highest wicket-taker, and that too when the lion's share of his wickets came at the postage stamp sized M. Chinnaswamy Stadium. The franchise chose Mohammed Siraj ahead of the loyal leggie alongside Virat Kohli and Glenn Maxwell. Rajasthan was now going to be his new home in the IPL.
The stoic spinner didn't allow the snub to dictate the trajectory of his career. He returned all guns blazing, making use of the same loopy leggies to emerge as the top wicket-taker in IPL 2022 with 27 scalps from 17 matches, outperforming the more 'modern' leg spinners Wanindu Hasaranga and Rashid Khan.
Chahal had a brilliant year for Team India as well in T20 Internationals. The leggie took 23 wickets in 2022 at 23.30 and an impressive economy rate of 7.71. Inexplicably though, as if destiny was playing a sordid prank on the self-acclaimed prankster, he found himself out of favour once again during the 2022 T20 World Cup in Australia, with veteran spinner Ravichandran Ashwin being preferred over him.
On the big grounds of Australia, where wrist spinners tend to get batters holed out in the deep off mishits – something Yuzi's loopy leggies were handcrafted for – Chahal did not get a single game.
Back to the present-day grind, as Chahal bagged his second successive four-wicket haul against KKR to go past Dwayne Bravo in IPL's all-time wickets tally and claim the Purple Cap for the ongoing season, it warranted a jester to not be bitter but humble on the occasion.
"I never even thought about it [becoming the highest wicket-taker] when I started playing the IPL," Chahal said after breaking the record. "I was with Mumbai Indians for three years but my journey actually started from 2014. There have been a lot of ups and downs and I've enjoyed a lot too. I've learnt from my downs, and what I'm today is because of my downfalls and my close ones."
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