Former India skipper Sourav Ganguly has observed that for some reason or the other India's star leg-spinner Yuzvendra Chahal fails to get a place in the Playing XI when it comes to the big tournaments. His remark comes as Chahal missed out on being part of the squad that played the T20 World Cup in 2021. In 2022, even though Chahal was part of the squad, he did not get to be part of the playing XI.
And now Chahal has had an impressive show in the IPL and he also surpassed Dwayne Bravo to become the all-time leading wicket-taker in the tournament, there has been a growing demand for Chahal's inclusion in the ODI scheme of things especially with the World Cup set to be played at home later this year. What also works in Chahal's favour is that he is a wrist spinner, something which Ganguly also pointed out.
“I feel India have to find a wrist-spinner for this World Cup. Jadeja is there, Ravichandran Ashwin is there, Axar Patel is there, who according to me is also an exceptional all-rounder,” the ex=BCCI President said on Star Sports.
“(Ravi) Bishnoi and Kuldeep (Yadav) are there but (Yuzvendra) Chahal somehow misses big tournaments. He performs extremely consistently in shorter formats, whether it is 20-over or 50-over. It is important to keep an eye on him as well,” he added.
“When you will play Australia, England or South Africa, a wrist-spinner makes a difference in these conditions. In 2011, there was Piyush Chawla, who bowled well,” he said.
Meanwhile, Ganguly had also said that the India vs Australia matches at the World Cups tend to be better than the India vs Pakistan matches despite there being so much hype for the latter. However, he did acknowleged that it would be a good game against Pakistan this time around as he rates the current Pakistan side under Babar Azam a good unit.