A former international chess player - Chahal still unsure how he turned cricketer

Bengaluru, October 20: Yuzvendra Chahal still sometimes does not believe how he turned a professional cricketer in the last 12 years after having successfully continued as a chess player till he was 15.

Chahal, the 27-year old leg spinner was a regular chess player in his early days. He had also donned Indian shirts in the junior World Cup.

Speaking over phone from National Cricket Academy (NCA) in Bangalore on Thursday (October 19), Chahal smilingly recalled, “I used to dream of becoming Vishy Anand in future. I used to practice chess almost throughout the day.

"In Jind, the suburb in Haryana where my residence is, there were not much quality chess players. I used to practice with one or two who were also representing state and producing performance.

"Amidst the situation Indian cricket team’s show in 2003 World Cup under the captaincy of Saurav Ganguly rekindled me and dragged my passion towards cricket.”

The reflection of the passion resulted in a call for Chahal to represent Haryana in the under-14 national championship. Chahal’s age was only 10 years old that time.

In his journey from chess player to professional cricketer Chahal gave credit first to his father and then Ranadhir Singh Chowdhury.

Chahal added, “I started playing cricket at a local club in Jind. That time I did not have any goal. Rather following advice from my father and Ranadhir Singh Chowdhury I tried to concentrate on batting that time.

"But later on former Indian international spinner Maninder Singh and Narendra Hirwani created passion for spin bowling.”

Chahal admitted while taking part in international cricket, chess helps him a lot.

The spinner who has been going through rigorous training for a better performance against New Zealand in the forthcoming series revealed, “Chess helps to improve concentration and focus. Today, while bowling against any difficult batsman I try to find out his weakness and chess helps me to pinpoint the batsman’s weakness. I can recover concentration.”