Deepak Chahar marked his return to international cricket in a stunning fashion: in the first ODI vs Zimbabwe, in Harare, on Thursday, Deepak Chahar produced a terrific new-ball spell that all but sealed India’s victory inside 11 overs of Zimbabwe’s innings for which he was rewarded with the Man of the Match award.
Fans made a hilarious request to Deepak Chahar
The pacer, who had missed all cricket action for nearly six months due to injuries, dismissed Zimbabwe’s top three – Innocent Kaia, Tadiwanashe Marumani and Wesley Madhevere- in his new-ball spell: 7-0-27-3, reducing Zimbabwe to 31/4 as Mohammed Siraj had dismissed Sean Williams.
However, amid this, Indian fans actually and hilariously were asking Chahar to not pick anymore wickets – and that is for quite an amusing reason: a fan present at the Harare Sports Club pleaded with Chahar to take more wickets as he wants to see KL Rahul bat.
In a video shared by a Twitter user, a fan in the stands screamed: “Deepak Chahar wicket mat le, KL Rahul ka batting dekhna hai.” (Deepak Chahar, please don’t take wickets, we want to watch KL Rahul bat.).”
The video has gone viral on social media; you can watch it here:
Fans at the Harare sports club pleading to Deepak Chahar to not take any more wickets, as they want to see some score on the board so that they can watch KL bat later in the day. #ZIMvIND pic.twitter.com/shpKF14DmE
— Rahul Sharma (@CricFnatic) August 18, 2022
Like Chahar, KL Rahul is also returning after an injury layoff: Rahul has not played any match after the IPL 2022 due to a groin injury and then covid. Once he was declared fit, Rahul was added to the squad and was appointed as the captain, with Shikhar Dhawan, who had initially been named the captain, as his deputy.
KL Rahul won the toss and elected to bat first. When the teamsheet was released, KL Rahul was slotted to bat at number 4, with Shubman Gill to partner Dhawan at the top followed by Ishan Kishan at number 3.
As it turned out, KL Rahul didn’t get to bat as Gill and Dhawan completed the chase of 190 with utter ease in 30.5 overs, both remaining not out – Gill on 82* and Dhawan on 81* – and registered a thumping 10-wicket win.
Earlier, led by Deepak Chahar, Indian bowlers rocked the hosts. Chahar took three wickets, so did Prasidh Krishna and Axar Patel, while Siraj took one; only Kuldeep Yadav went wicketless among the five Indian bowlers.
Taking his Man of the Match award, Deepak Chahar said, “The landing was a little hard and when you play a international game after six and half months, obviously you will be a little nervous. Before coming here I played at least 4-5 practice games and the body and mind wasn’t working together in the first few overs, but it got better after that. I’m fine and the body is fine as well.”
