IPL 2021: Yuzvendra Chahal joins the RCB camp in Dubai while wearing a Team India mask
A day after leg-spinner Yuzvendra Chahal was snubbed from India's 15-member squad for the upcoming T20 World Cup, the 29-year-old entered the RCB camp in Dubai wearing a Team India mask.
The Royal Challengers Bangalore took to their official Instagram account on Thursday to post a picture of Chahal with the caption:
"A splash of magic has just landed in the UAE to join the RCB fam. Glad to have you join the team, Yuzi!"
Check out the post here:
The national selection committee led by Chetan Sharma announced the 15-member squad on Wednesday and the most notable omission from the squad was Chahal.
The 29-year-old has been the spearhead of the Indian spin-bowling unit for the last few years. While his performances in both ODIs and T20Is have tapered off in the past 12-18 months, he was still expected to find a place in the T20 World Cup squad.
However, the selection committee has decided to put their money on the finger spinners with Ravichandran Ashwin and Axar Patel returning to the setup. Rahul Chahar has also been rewarded for his good form in the recent past while mystery spinner Varun Chakravarthy has also been included in the team.
No Yuzvendra Chahal and Kuldeep Yadav as India come full circle in the spin department
The non-selection of Yuzvendra Chahal and his former partner-in-crime Kuldeep Yadav means that India have come full circle with respect to their preference of spinners in white-ball cricket.
Back in 2017, Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja were phased out of the limited-overs setup for the wrist-spin duo of Chahal-Kuldeep. At the time, it felt like the end of the road for the off-spin bowling all-rounders in the format.
However, Jadeja made a return to the setup a year later thanks to his multi=dimensional skills.
After two years of dominance in ODI and T20I cricket, Chahal and Kuldeep’s performances began to taper off. With neither of them boasting of any ability with the bat, the management decided to play only one of them in the playing XI.
Kuldeep’s decline was starker than Chahal’s. However, since the 2019 World Cup, the latter’s performances also began to take a sharp dip. Chahal has managed just 11 wickets in 13 innings at an average of 41.36 and an extremely costly economy rate of 8.92 since January of 2020.
Chahal was dropped midway through the T20I series against England earlier this year. While he did decently in the ODI rubber against Sri Lanka, the Haryana leg-spinner missed out on the T20I series due to COVID-19.
With a T20 World Cup spot up in smoke, Chahal will look to once again resurrect his career when he features for RCB in the second phase of IPL 2021.