At the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2022 auction, Chennai Super Kings (CSK) managed to assemble a squad with more or less the same composition as last year. The four-time IPL champions, who retained MS Dhoni, Ravindra Jadeja, Ruturaj Gaikwad, and Moeen Ali as their four retained players, spent wisely at the two-day auction event in Bengaluru and put together a squad that has resembled CSK in the past.
With most of old and a touch of new, CSK brought back some of the most genuine match-winners. The likes of Robin Uthappa, Dwayne Bravo, Ambati Rayudu, and Deepak Chahar for ₹2 crores, ₹4.4 crores, ₹6.75 crores, and ₹14 crores respectively. Chahar, in fact, was CSK’s costliest buy at the auction and the second most expensive overall behind his Indian teammate, Ishan Kishan.
Recently, during the ODI series in South Africa, Deepak Chahar had a vital half-century. While for many, Chahar shining with the bat is new, the 29-year-old reveals that ever since he took up cricket, he has always concentrated on batting. He recently revealed who inspired him to focus more on his batting.
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Recently during a conversation on the Youtube channel, Sports Yaari, Deepak Chahar said, “One day Mahi bhai said to me… ‘you have done a good job with the bowling but haven’t justified your batting. I think you should do that’. He told me the day he announced his retirement. We were sitting in the evening and talking. Dhoni said I should focus more on batting.”
Deepak Chahar acknowledged that there was a time in his career when his batting peaked more than his bowling, but lack of match practice and opportunities blunted his skills.
Acknowledging the same, Deepak Chahar said, “In 2017-18, I used to bat better because I was at home and so I used to practice batting a lot. In fact, I used to focus more on batting than bowling because there was a limit on the number of balls you would bowl in one day because doing more would take a toll on your body. But after that, when I started playing more, especially overseas, I didn’t get many chances to perform with the bat. Because of this, the fluency in my batting got affected.”
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Talking about his recent batting knocks, Deepak Chahar said, “When I scored that half-century against Sri Lanka, I started off very slowly. In the first 25-30 balls, I didn’t even play shots because I wasn’t confident myself of them coming off. Before that, for the previous 5-6 months, I hadn’t batted. But when you play regularly and do well in matches, the rhythm starts returning.”
