Senior Indian leg-spinner Yuzvendra Chahal made a sensational debut for Northamptonshire in their final round of the One-Day Cup, a 50-over domestic white-ball competition in England. Chahal picked five wickets in his quota of 10 overs and bowled five maidens while conceding just 14 runs on Wednesday, August 14. Chahal decimated his former team, Kent in Canterbury as they were bundled out for 82 in 35.1 overs.
Yuzvendra Chahal bowled with a lot of discipline as he got two of his five wickets — that of Jaydn Denly and Beyers Swanepoel out LBW. Chahal got middle-order batter Ekansh Singh stumped while Grant Stewart and Nathan Gilchrist were caught in his bowling.
It was Yuzvendra Chahal’s sixth five-wicket in List A cricket. Notably, Chahal had picked nine wickets in two matches in the One-Day Cup when he played for Kent in 2023.
Chahal’s signing with Northamptonshire was confirmed only hours before the one-day game on Wednesday. Chahal linked up with his India teammate Prithvi Shaw at the franchise. Prithvi has been in fine form for Northamptonshire, scoring 344 runs in eight matches in the white-ball tournament. Ajinkya Rahane is another Indian player at the county, representing Leicestershire.
Yuzvendra Chahal will also play five County Championship matches for Northamptonshire in his stint in the United Kingdom. The leg-spinner is bidding to return to the senior national team after having missed the tours of Zimbabwe and Sri Lanka. Chahal was part of India’s T20 World Cup squad in the USA and the West Indies. However, the leg-spinner did not get a game during India’s victorious campaign.
Chahal was not named in any of the four squads for the first round of the Duleep Trophy, which will kickstart the domestic red-ball cricket season in India. The first-round matches of the Duleep Trophy will get underway on September 5 in Anantapur, Andhra Pradesh, and M Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bengaluru. Shumban Gill (Team A), Abhimanyu Easwaran (Team B), Ruturaj Gaikwad (Team C) and Shreyas Iyer (Team D) have been named as captains of the four red-ball teams.