Former Team India opener Gautam Gambhir has blasted leg-spinner Yuzvendra Chahal for his negative approach against South Africa batters in the second T20I at the Barabati Stadium in Cuttack on Sunday. The Indian cricket team lost the match by four wickets after Rishabh Pant and company failed to sparkle with the bat and could only post 148/6 in their quota of 20 overs. South Africa eventually chased down the target without too many problems, courtesy of wicketkeeper batter Heinrich Klaasen's whirlwind 81 off 46 deliveries. While Bhuvneshwar Kumar bowled superb lines and lengths to trouble the Proteas batters at the start of their innings and was among the pick of the Indian bowlers with figures of 13/4, it was the spinners who cost India the game. Axar Patel went for 19 runs in his lone over whereas Yuzvendra Chahal ended up giving away 49 runs in his 4 after Heinrich Klaasen took him apart. Gautam Gambhir, however, stated that Yuzvendra Chahal is among a handful of leg-spinners in the world who relies on beating the opposition bowlers through flight, varying the pace and angle on his deliveries.
But the wrist-spinner didn't do any of these things at Cuttack and instead focused on not giving too many runs away. This change in approach proved suicidal because eventually, he succeeded in neither.
Gautam Gambhir emphasised that Yuzvendra Chahal should always try to go for wickets because it is the only way he would be able to restrict the flow of runs.
“It's very important to vary your pace. If Chahal thinks ‘I'll bowl tight and get wickets', it's not going to happen. That's the job of a left-arm spinner. A finger spinner is your defensive bowler but a wrist spinner is your attacking option. He (Chahal) needs to have an attacking mindset. He can give 50 runs in four overs. But if he picks up three wickets, he can take the team to a situation from where it can win the match. But if he concedes 40-50 runs and gets just one wicket, it's a problem,” Gautam Gambhir told Star Sports after the match.
“He needs to bowl slow and tempt the batter. No issues if he gets his for a couple of sixes. In the second T20I, none of the SA batters tried to step out against Chahal. They were hitting the leg-spinner from the crease, which means he (Chahal) was trying to bowl it fast. We expect those kinds of deliveries from Axar, not Chahal,” he further added.
Notably, Yuzvendra Chahal bowled only 2.1 overs in the previous match in Delhi and captain Rishabh Pant came in for severe criticism from former Indian cricketers, Zaheer Khan and Ashish Nehra for not giving him the ball back after he went for plenty in his first spell.
“I felt not using Chahal's full quota, on the hindsight, is definitely something which Rishabh will look at. Team management will have a conversation around it. You've seen Chahal having a tough day but having the ability to come back and give a breakthrough. Indian team required to bring the next batter in. So, it was a call that was in your hands,” Zaheer Khan said about Rishabh Pant's decision on Cricbuzz.
“You can control who is going to bowl. In hindsight, the Indian team and Rishabh will try and analyze the game and see what they could've done differently. Maybe Axar's last over, which went for runs, gave Rishabh the signal that spin is not the option right now and he didn't look at that direction. But the ability of Chahal is greater than that,” the former Indian cricket team pacer added.
“The 12 balls he could've bowled at a stage when Rassie and Miller had to go hard at bowlers… he could've created an opportunity there. If a wicket was taken at that stage, the game would've been different,” Zaheer Khan asserted.
Rishabh Pant didn't make the same mistake on the weekend but the result turned out to be painful for him as Yuzvendra Chahal was taken to the cleaners by the Proteas batters.
Yuzvendra Chahal has now conceded 75 runs in the two games played in the five-match series.
Like Gautam Gambhir, Rishabh Pant too was critical of the performance of the spin bowling duo of Yuzvendra Chahal and Axar Patel, lamenting that their performance was sub-par and they needed to pull up their shocks in the next match of the series.
“The spinners have (need) to come (perform) better into the game,” Rishabh Pant said at the post-match presentation ceremony.
The third match of the series between the Indian cricket team and the Temba Bavuma-led South Africa will be played at Visakhapatnam's YS Rajasekhara Reddy Cricket Stadium on Tuesday.
It would be a do-or-die game for the Indians, considering they have lost both the matches in the series. On the other hand, a win for South Africa would give them a series win, a first for them in the South Asian nation.
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