Having already starred in game-changing knocks with the bat, the focus should be firmly on Deepak Chahar, the bowler, who deserves more game time to quash the notion that he’s a one-trick pony, writes Rohit Sankar.

Wobbling at 160-6 in a run chase of 276 in the third and final ODI of the series against Sri Lanka last year, India made a slight tweak to their batting order from the one given on the official team sheet: Deepak Chahar replaced Bhuvneshwar Kumar at No.8. It can be argued that the move was a manifestation of India’s changing thought process around the two new ball swing bowlers.

Chahar justified the move with a match-winning 69* off 82 balls, going on to credit the then-interim head coach Rahul Dravid, for placing trust in his batting. Having seen Chahar’s batting potential from close quarters, Dravid appears to have immense trust in his abilities and it showed a few months later again in South Africa. In Cape Town last month, he nearly pulled off another heist, smashing 54 off 34 from No.7, single-handedly driving India to the brink of a victory in a cliffhanger.

Those two knocks made headlines, but what didn’t was his bowling. In his usual style, he made an early breakthrough in the Cape Town game, a rarity for India in the last couple of years. In the two ODIs against Sri Lanka last year, he had snared four middle overs wickets.

It’s a coalition of these versatile skillsets that should ideally make Chahar more tempting than ever in the limited-overs setup. This wasn’t always the case for someone pigeonholed as a new-ball bowler in his first few IPL seasons with the Chennai Super Kings, under the masterful guidance of MS Dhoni.

It’s still his new ball flair that makes Chahar excellent, but he hasn’t stopped adding more to his resume. The one quality that stands out in Deepak Chahar is his perseverance. In an interview with Cricbuzz last year, his father recalls how at the age of 12 he would relentlessly bowl 500 deliveries a day: “250 in-swing, 250 out-swing”.

It formed the basis of Chahar’s growth as a bowler. In Dhoni, he found the perfect captain — someone who could maximise his value and expand dimensions to his thinking as a bowler. At CSK, Chahar transformed from a three-overs powerplay bowler to a more-than-handy death bowler. In the last two IPL seasons, only one fast bowler has a better economy rate than Chahar in the last five overs of an innings [min 50 balls bowled]: the peerless Jasprit Bumrah.

India’s probably never needed multi-dimensional cricketers in ODIs as much as they do now. With hardly any part-time contributors in the top six, bowling all-rounders are in high demand, and few match Chahar’s ability to tick multiple boxes even outside that.

For one, he is a plausible solution to India’s long-lasting new ball issues. With Bhuvneshwar Kumar’s decline as a powerplay bowler and India’s inability to find the right partner for Bumrah, the powerplay numbers for India’s bowling attack has taken a serious hit, especially in ODIs — the team averages 108.15 with the ball in the first 10 overs since the end of the 2019 ODI World Cup. In the same time frame in T20Is, India has a bowling strike rate of 26.31 in the powerplay. Only one other full-member team has a worse strike rate in this phase in this period.

Bear in mind that Bumrah himself has struggled to have an impact with the new ball. Since the 2019 World Cup, all he’s taken is one ODI wicket in 47 overs bowled inside the powerplay. In 12 T20Is, the corresponding number is seven wickets. But his economy rates — 4.53 in ODIs and 5.1 in T20Is — remain top-notch, a sign that teams prefer to play him out and attack at the other end where India haven’t had great options.

Chahar’s new ball skills that are reflected in his numbers in the IPL too — most wickets by an Indian in the powerplay (17) in the last two IPL seasons combined — makes him a valuable addition in that regard. Factor in his improved returns as a middle and death overs bowler and variations in terms of slower bouncers, knuckleball, and slow yorkers, and Chahar has a solid resume on paper.

His evolution from a new ball bowler to a versatile all-phase bowler, who thinks on his feet, and now a bowling all-rounder is in its final phase. With the T20 World Cup coming up later this year and the ODI World Cup at home next year, Chahar could be the versatile force that India needs alongside Bumrah.