I have even played IPL with a fracture: Yuzvendra Chahal

Youth chess champion turned India cricketer, Yuzvendra Chahal has had an excellent career so far having played 94 matches in the limited-overs format bagging 146 wickets. The Royal Challengers Bangalore spinner revealed that he played the Indian Premier League season with a finger fracture.

Yuzi recently appeared on Baseline Ventures’ podcast “Double Trouble” which is hosted by Indian women cricketers, Smriti Mandhana and Jemimah Rodrigues. He was joined by Indian women’s side leg-spinner Poonam Yadav. In the podcast, the 29-year-old talked about the importance of taking good care of their fingers. 

"I found out later that I had four fractures. I have even played IPL with a fracture. Our fingers are very important for us. If they stop working, we will have to start working outside the ground," said Chahal.

"Someone who is 6 feet tall will not have that flight during spinning that we can take advantage of," he said. "You have more options of using the crease. A tall spinner’s hand will always come down, it can’t stay up," he said.

"When a leg spinner dismisses a batsman, notice a pattern of leg-spinning in the wickets. I’m happy with my height if I would have been taller, then I would have dreamt about becoming a medium pacer," he added.

Yuzi explained his journey from being a junior national chess champion to becoming the backbone of the Indian and RCB team bowling unit.

“My dad taught me chess as a side game when I was a kid in hope that I stay at home. Then he taught my sister how to play chess so we could keep playing with each other. I used to play 14-15 hours. I used to sleep at 5 am, wake up and have breakfast by 10 am, play till 2 pm, rest for an hour and play till 7 pm, and then play again from 11 pm to 5 am. So my sleeping pattern had become like that," he said.

"My dad told me I could leave it after becoming a national champion and when I did, I told him, “ab nahi ho payega dad (I can’t do it anymore). I want to play cricket now. This was after I played World Cup in Ahmedabad in 2003. That is when I completely changed my focus to cricket," he added.