'He was very drunk, he took me and hung me out of the 15th-floor balcony'

Yuzvendra Chahal has opened up - for the second time this year - about instances of physical harassment when he was a newcomer in the IPL. The latest revelation relates to an incident in 2013, when Chahal was with Mumbai Indians, and a player allegedly dangled him from a 15th-floor hotel balcony after "getting drunk".

"This dates back to 2013, when I was with Mumbai Indians," Chahal said, speaking to R Ashwin in a Rajasthan Royals video, published on April 7, about how players handle tricky off-field situations. "We had a match in Bengaluru and there was a get-together after that. So there was a player who was very drunk - and I won't take his name - he was very drunk, he just called me aside, and he took me outside and he hung me out from the balcony.

"I was holding on to him, with my arms around his neck. If I had lost my grip, we were on the 15th floor… Suddenly many people who were there came and handled the situation. I kind of fainted, and they gave me water. Then I realised how responsible we need to be when we go anywhere. So that was one incident where I made a narrow escape. Had there been a small mistake there, I would have fallen down."

Earlier in the year, on a podcast published by his earlier team Royal Challengers Bangalore, Chahal had recounted an episode from 2011, talking about how his then Mumbai team-mates, James Franklin and Andrew Symonds, had tied him up, taped his mouth, left him in a room and forgot about him for a whole night.

"It happened in 2011, when Mumbai Indians won the Champions League. We were in Chennai. He [Symonds] had had a lot of 'fruit juice' (laughs). I don't know what he was thinking, but he and James Franklin got together and tied my hands and legs and said, 'no, you've to open'," Chahal said. "They were so lost that they taped my mouth and forgot about me completely during the party. Then they all left and, in the morning, someone came to clean [the room] and saw me, and called a few others and untied me. They asked me since when I had been there, and I said, 'I've been here the whole night'. So that became a funny story."

When asked if Symonds and Franklin had apologised after that, Chahal said, "No, they said when you drink so much juice you don't remember stuff in the morning (laughs)." Chahal and Symonds have, however, developed a relationship over time. Speaking on Breakfast with Champions, Chahal had revealed some time ago that the two were close friends who exchange messages from time to time.

Mumbai was the first IPL team for Chahal, now 31, and he has since played for Royal Challengers before being bought by Royals ahead of the ongoing season of the IPL.