Yuzvendra Chahal wants to be included in India squad for Chess Nations Cup
Indian leg-spinner Yuzvendra Chahal recently left a hilarious comment on the International Chess Federation's (ICF) announcement of the Indian contingent scheduled to participate in the Nations Cup.
The ICF, through a tweet on April 24 announced that Viswanathan Anand (2751), Vidit Gujrathi (2636), Pentala Harikrishna (2690), Koneru Humpy (2483) will be representing India in the competition.
Yuzvendra Chahal, who has been extremely active on social media since the beginning of the lockdown made his presence felt with a hilarious tweet.
Notably, Yuzvendra Chahal was a junior national chess champion in his youth days, before he made the switch to cricket.
The Royal Challengers Bangalore spinner has an Elo rating of 1956 and back in 2002, even won the National U-12 Championship in Kolkata. Yuvendra Chahal also represented India at the Asian and World Junior Championships during his chess-playing days.
Most recently, the leg spinner took part in an online blitz event organised by chess.com, where he faced off against India's second-youngest Grandmaster, R Praggnanandhaa among other competitors.
Yuzvendra Chahal happy to be a part of the commentary box
In response to Yuzvendra Chahal's comment, the ICF offered to have the spinner as a guest in the commentary box and, in the process, cheer for team India.
A couple of days ago, the International Chess Federation and Chess.com announced the upcoming Online Nations Cup, which is scheduled to take place from May 5 - May 10.
India will be one of the nations taking part in the competition which will also feature Russia, Europe, USA, China and a Rest of the World team. The rapidplay format will be used in the competition, with the winners taking home a big sum of $180,000 as the prize money.
Apart from Anand, Gujrathi, Harikrishna and Humpy, Adhiban Baskaran and Harika Dronavalli will be a part of the team as reserve players. Vladimir Kramnik will be the advisor for team India.
As for the RCB spinner, he has been posting videos and entertaining fans on social media sites such as Instagram and Tik Tok.