The leg-spinner played three matches for Northamptonshire this season.
Leg-spinner Yuzvendra Chahal has decided to put a halt to his stint in the ongoing County Championship, to return home. The Punjab Kings (PBKS) player was representing Northamptonshire in the championship. However, Chahal has taken the decision to step away and head home citing personal reasons. His stint with the team lasted for three matches, in which he was extremely successful and added a lot of value.
The club was not new for the Indian spinner. This was the second consecutive occasion on which he chose to sign a contract for the club. In the three Division Two matches he played this season, Chahal managed to pick 12 wickets with a staggering economy of 3.20. He also featured in six One-Day Cup games, but could manage just as many wickets. His performances in the previous season are what landed him the contract for the current season. To add to that, Chahal has been out of the scheme of things from the Indian side for quite sometime now.
In the previous season for Northamptonshire, he played four County Championship matches – one more than this time around. He managed to scalp a humongous 21 wickets at an average of 21.1, which also included two five-wicket hauls. He managed to grab his career-best figures with a six-wicket haul in the first innings against Derbyshire. That game also happened to be his last match for Northamptonshire last season.
The 35-year-old leg-spinner will return home citing personal reasons. His club took to their social media handles to comment on the matter. They confirmed the same, and also thanked Chahal for his contributions to the performance of the club this season. The team hasn’t had a season to celebrate, as they sit second-last in the points table with just two wins out of 11 matches so far. They ended up losing four games, and have managed to draw the remaining five.
In the One-Day Cup too, their performances do not strike a chord. In eight matches, they have managed to win a solitary game and have lost the remaining seven. As a result, they finished last in their group. But the shortest format gave Northamptonshire a reason to smile, as the team managed to play the semi-final of the T20 Blast. In the next three matches of the County Championship, the team will face Glamorgan, Gloucestershire and Leicestershire. Two of these teams are in the top two of the points table, and it would not be an easy journey ahead.
Chahal hasn’t had it easy in the recent past. Despite some good performances on the cricket field, his personal life has not been the way he would have liked it to be. Despite those reasons, the leg-spinner managed to be one of the mainstays for his team and stepped up whenever the team needed. He took a four and five-wicket haul in the three games he managed to play this season, which speaks volumes of his ability.
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Looks difficult! It is often said that comebacks are more difficult than making a debut. It is due to the sheer baggage that a player brings when one is making a comeback. But for Yuzvendra Chahal, things seem quite different. He has not played a single Test for India, and was only a part of the white-ball formats. However, with time, his place could not stand its ground in the side, and he drifted away from the white-ball setups as well.
Currently, the Indian side is jam-packed in the white-ball formats. Spinners like Kuldeep Yadav, Varun Chakaravarthy, Washington Sundar and Axar Patel have cemented their place in the mix. Getting into the Indian white-ball teams currently would be an uphill task for any bowler, let alone Chahal. However, the PBKS leg-spinner would have to put the hard yards in via the domestic circuit.
In 72 ODIs, Chahal has scalped 121 wickets at an economy of well under six. He was an integral part of the ODI and T20I setups for the Blues. For a considerable time, Chahal was a menace for opponents along with Kuldeep Yadav. The duo used to torment batting attacks, especially on wickets where there was assistance. In the shortest format as well, Chahal bagged 96 wickets in 80 matches with best figures of 6/25.
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