Hat-trickster Chahal is still making batters look silly

MS Dhoni had just jumped out of his crease and launched a one-handed six off Yuzvendra Chahal over long-on in the 19th over. Ravindra Jadeja took the "catch" in front of the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) dugout, with Chepauk going wild. They felt that CSK were onto something. Until Chahal stopped them in their tracks with his crafty legspin.

He bagged four wickets in five balls, including a hat-trick, which precipitated a collapse that saw CSK lose their last five wickets for six runs in the space of seven balls. After Dhoni had hit that six off the first legal ball of the over, ESPNcricinfo's forecaster projected a total of 203. Chahal's strikes, however, limited CSK to 190, with four balls unused in their innings.

When Chahal came onto bowl that over, the odds were stacked against him. He had bowled just two overs until that point, with Sam Curran having dumped him out of the attack with a brace of fours and a six. The dew was setting in; eight members of the groundstaff had just gone out, dragging four ropes between them. Chahal also had to contend with just four men outside the circle, instead of five, because of slow over-rate.

CSK's spin basher Shivam Dube was at the crease. When the two teams had met in New Chandigarh in early April, Dube's presence kept Chahal away from the attack until his dismissal in the 16th over. Chahal ended up bowling just one over.

Cut to Chepauk. He beat all the odds and changed the game in just one over. There was pin-drop, deathly silence in the stands when Chahal completed his hat-trick and slipped into his meme-inspired signature pose.

After an advancing Dhoni had lofted a middle-stump ball over long-on, Chahal shifted his line wide of off and had the CSK captain holing out to long-off. Chahal's wide lines and cunning pace variations played a big role in the hat-trick that came later in the over as well.

Fourth ball of the over, he slowed his pace down to 78.5kph and had Deepak Hooda carving a wide, loopy legbreak to point. The next ball was a quicker slider, which zipped off the pitch and clean bowled Anshul Kamboj. Then, when he tossed up a legbreak around off, Noor Ahmad was caught at long-on.

"It felt good," Chahal said of his hat-trick at the break between innings. "It was the 19th over and Mahi [Dhoni] bhai [was there], so it could have gone either way, but I was thinking about taking wickets. There were five fielders inside, so I was just ensuring the batters don't get settled. Wanted to play with the batters' minds."

It's for these wicket-taking skills and smarts that Punjab Kings (PBKS) outlaid INR 18 crore for him at the mega auction last November.

"Well, it didn't look like he was going to take 4 for 30 today - did it - at one stage? Two overs for 30 [23], and then he comes on for the hat-trick and four wickets in an over," PBKS head coach Ricky Ponting said at his post-match press conference. "You know, that actually put the brakes right on them [CSK]. They could have got away and got sort of 220 or 210 at the end there, and they didn't.

"Over the years, it [Dharamsala] hasn't been a wicket that's aided spin a lot, but when you've got a quality legspinner like him, it doesn't matter what surface you play on"Ricky Ponting on Yuzvendra Chahal

"Look, he's a wicket-taker. When we were at the auction table, we talked about how we were going to build the team that we thought was going to be good enough, and Chahal being the leading wicket-taker ever [in the IPL], and then you've got Arshdeep [Singh] and Shreyas [Iyer] and these guys, they start to form the backbone of a nice-looking team. So Chahal has been a big part of that, and he will be more of a part of that as the tournament goes on.

"We head up to Dharamshala now tomorrow. We're not exactly sure what sort of surface we'll get there. Over the years, it hasn't been a wicket that's aided spin a lot, but when you've got a quality legspinner like him, it doesn't matter what surface you play on."

Chahal has the knack of taking wickets in clusters. This was the second time he had picked up four wickets in an over in the IPL. Only two other bowlers have achieved this feat. In all, he has taken two or more wickets in an over 18 times in the IPL.

The current trend for wristspinners in T20 cricket is to bowl fast and dart it into the pitch. A number of bowlers of this variety, including Rashid Khan, Noor, Varun Chakravarthy, Suyash Sharma and newbie Digvesh Rathi, have followed this trend and enjoyed success. Even left-arm fingerspinners like Krunal Pandya are banging bouncers at high speeds in IPL 2025.

Chahal had missed the 2021 T20 World Cup because the selectors wanted another spinner who could "deliver with more speed". But that hasn't deterred Chahal from tossing the ball up in the mid-70kph range and hiding it away from the swinging arc of six-hungry batters.

Unlike other wristspinners, Chahal uses his wrong'un sparingly, but his control over his pace and line variations sets him apart. He can even push his pace up to 90kph and keep batters guessing.

CSK's guesses were all wrong in the 19th over and Chahal made them look very silly.