It was chaos for the South African team in Trivandrum as India’s new ball bowlers, Deepak Chahar and Arshdeep Singh, wreaked havoc in the powerplay.
South Africa ended the powerplay at 30/5; but the two bowlers only took 15 balls combined to dismiss 5 visiting batters, four of them for ducks and one for 1.
Arshdeep took 3 wickets while Chahar took 2 of the first five to leave South Africa reeling at 9/5!!
Chahar was on the money right from the first over. He lured Bavuma with outswinging deliveries before sneaking in an inswinger to that went through the gate of the Protea skipper to rattle the timber.
After a 3-wicket over by Arshdeep, Chahar snared another one – a big fish: the in-form young hitter Tristan Stubbs. Knowing the Stubbs will play his shots, irrelevant of the situation, Chahar bowled an outswinger which was slightly short. Stubbs’ hard hands found a thick outside edge which was caught by the thirdman fielder.
Deepak Chahar is giving a tough competition for Bhuvneshwar Kumar’s position
Deepak Chahar is making his return to the Indian T20I team after a 7 months, 6 of which he had spent on the sidelines with injury.
In the absence of Chahar in these months, more so after the IPL 2022, Bhuvneshwar Kumar had cemented his place as India’s new ball bowler in the shortest format. Kumar was named Player of the Series twice – vs South Africa and vs England – as he made regular strikes with the new ball, which always proves beneficial for any team.
However, in recent the last couple of series, Bhuvneshwar was really exposed as a death bowler as he bowled poorly and was clattered for big runs in the Asia Cup and vs Australia while bowling in the death – in the 19th overs, 19 runs vs Pakistan, 14 vs Sri Lanka, 16 vs Australia in the first T20I; 21 runs in the third T20I vs Australia in the 18th over.
So clearly, Bhuvneshwar Kumar becomes ineffective when it comes to death bowling and Rohit Sharma should avoid bowling Kumar in that phase of the game as much as possible.
What about Deepak Chahar? Well, Chahar hasn’t bowled a lot in the death overs as MS Dhoni, his CSK captain, almost always used his 4 overs in the first three-quarter of an innings. But, in all T20s where Chahar has bowled in the death overs (last 4), he has registered an economy of 8.4, which seems par, and good given he’s predominantly a new ball bowler.
Deepak Chahar is in India’s reserves for the T20 World Cup while Bhuvneshwar is in the main squad and is likely to start in the first match at the tournament. But, changes can be made to the squad until 9th October, and the performances of the two players could really force the selectors and management to swap their places.
Why should Deepak Chahar replace Bhuvneshwar Kumar?
While there is little to choose between the two when it comes to new ball bowling – both adept in swinging the new ball both ways – it is the difference in their batting that has made me feel that Chahar should come in the squad, and in the XI over Bhuvneshwar.
Deepak Chahar is well-known as a powerful ball muscler and in the past has shown batting capabilities at the highest level – he’s played a couple of important knocks in ODIs, once winning the match in Sri Lanka and once bringing India close to victory in South Africa.
When it comes to T20 cricket, the difference between the two players’ strike rate is significant: in 43 innings he’s batted in, Chahar has scored 287 runs at a strike rate of 129 and has hit 20 sixes in his T20 career, and his 22 T20I runs for India have come at 244! Whereas Bhuvneshwar has only hit 6 sixes in 85 T20 innings and has a strike rate of 91.
So, if India wish to have a new-ball exponent who can whack the ball good and add batting depth – as they might have to leave Harshal Patel out for Arshdeep – then India should go to Deepak Chahar instead of Bhuvneshwar Kumar.
