Chennai: Indian star all-rounder Deepak Chahar revealed the advice he received from captain MS Dhoni that egged him on to focus on his batting.
“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 (from international cricket). We were sitting in the evening and talking. Dhoni said I should focus more on batting,” Deepak Chahar told Youtube Channel SportsYaari.
Chahar said he was in pursuit of becoming an all-rounder and was working towards it.
“I have been batting since I was young and this pursuit of being an all-rounder had started back then itself. 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.”
Chahar’s batting prowess came to the fore in the second ODI against Sri Lanka last year where he scored a match-winning 69* after walking in at No. 8.
“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 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.”
