IPL 2023: Piyush Chawla serves up new tricks for Mumbai Indians

Piyush Chawla went unsold at the IPL 2022 mega-auction but the seasoned leggie didn’t give up on cricket. He stayed at it and played numerous club games, local tournaments, and domestic white-ball tournaments for his state-side Gujarat before finally attracting a bid of Rs 50 lakh from Mumbai Indians at the IPL mini-auction in December last year.

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Chawla, 34, didn’t look like a long-term investment from MI, who banked heavy on youth right from the mega auction. More than the future, it was to fix the immediate problem of spin.

Ever since Rahul Chahar and Krunal Pandya went to Punjab Kings and Lucknow Supergiants, respectively, MI have lacked bite in the spin department and tried to fix it with Chawla.

Still early days into the 2023 season but the Chawla move is paying good dividends for the MI camp. On a night when others leaked runs against RCB, he went at only 6.5 in his four overs, scalped the dangerous Ajinkya Rahane in the CSK fixture and returned with three wickets in the six-wicket win over Delhi Capitals on Tuesday.

Well before he was picked by Mumbai Indians, Chawla turned up for Life Cricket Club in the very competitive All India SPJ Cup Season 2.

The tournament was played at the Jamia Sports Complex, New Delhi in August and had IPL regulars like Rahul Tewatia, Abdul Samad, Shahbaz Ahmed, Shivam Mavi, Manan Vohra, Lalit Yadav and Varun Chakravarthy.

In three fixtures, the leggie picked four wickets and maintained a commendable economy rate of 7.50, and had a useful contribution with the bat too.

For Chawla, it’s game time over long spells in the nets and he prefers to play quality club-level tournaments to stay in the rhythm. After the tournament in Delhi, the experienced campaigner joined the Gujarat team for the domestic white-ball competitions, got a bid from MI at IPL auction and then finally got into IPL preparation mode with the DY Patil T20 tournament in February this year. He didn’t take many wickets, 3 in six fixtures, but led a young Reliance 1 team to the title.

“I am somebody who prefers bowling four overs in the match than bowling in the nets. You get to know whether a ball is a good ball or bad ball in a match. So I make sure I am playing a lot of matches. Whenever I get the time. Whenever the good tournaments happen – the one in Delhi you mentioned and then the DY Patil in Mumbai – so I played those and also played domestic white-ball for Gujarat. So those are enough games for me to prepare myself. And then obviously I make sure I am working on my fitness as well,” Chawla said in response to a News18 CricketNext query at the post-match presser.

Since the opening game of IPL 2023, Chawla has looked eager and ready. He continues to be a giant in the tournament and is currently fifth in the leading wicket-takers tally with 161 scalps in 168 games.

He is behind Amit Mishra (169), Lasith Malinga (170), Yuzvendra Chahal (174) and Dwayne Bravo (184). May it be a club game in Delhi or an IPL fixture for Mumbai Indians, the drill hasn’t changed for Chawla and he is “more than happy” sticking to his strengths.

“It’s true that I am not playing much cricket these days but I make sure whatever games I can play, I make sure I give my 100% and put my body on the line. Sometimes when you go for a local game or a club game, you tend to lose your thing, you just come and bowl. I make sure I am bowling with my full potential, what I can do for the team and I don’t watch much cricket to be very honest. If you bowl a good ball, it’s a good ball in any format for any batter. So I just prepare myself and I make sure I am going to strengthen my thing… something which is helping me throughout my career. Everyone knows that PC is coming and he is going to bowl a wrong ‘un but I still end up getting wickets with those balls. So I am more than happy doing that,” said Chawla.

Impact Player rule increasing longevity?

Amit Mishra for LSG and Chawla for MI, it’s been refreshing to see the experienced leg-spinners roll back the years in the ongoing season of the IPL.

With the Impact Player rule, the teams have the option of using them as per situation/match-ups and possibly replacing them with a specialist batter in the other half of the contest. Chawla, however, insisted that he is not being used as an Impact Player because of his batting skills lower down the order too.

“I am not being used as an impact player because I bat also lower down the order. It’s for the people who don’t bat or don’t bowl. Don’t take my name that longevity increases,” he laughs.

“If that comes into play, it makes the game a little more interesting. Now all the batting teams bat till No.8, 9. So it makes a difference as a team and if you are playing on a good batting wicket, even 210-220 is chaseable,” said Chawla.

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