Deepak Chahar pulled out a rabbit in the second one-day international against Sri Lanka at the R Premadasa Stadium on the outskirts of Colombo on Tuesday. The men in blue in their fifth match, with the white ball dissected the top-order batsmen and engineered successes, came out with flying colors with the willow and propelled India to a memorable victory, That too sealed the fate of the three-match ODI series.
Hitting the winning runs, a lifted boundary off pacer Kasun Ranjitha at long-on picket, the right arm ended on an unbeaten 69 (82b 7 x4s 1×6) which went straight into the record books of Indian cricket. Batting at number 8, he became the highest scorer for India and went on to win the match reaching the 100th over of the match.
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Chahar broke a 21-year-old record held by former India seamer and now Sony Pictures commentator Ajit Agarkar. The Mumbai all-rounder, who batted a hundred times for India at number eight, scored an unbeaten 67 against Zimbabwe at Rajkot in December 2000. Agarkar hit seven fours and four sixes in his unbeaten 67 off 25 balls, taking India to a high total of 301 for 6, and Zimbabwe by 39 runs. Agarkar’s seventh-wicket partner was Ritinder Singh Sodhi, who scored an unbeaten 53 and shared an unbroken 85-run partnership.
The current coach of the Indian team in Sri Lanka, Rahul Dravid, had scored six runs in that match falling to left-arm fast bowler Brian Strang. Chahar’s heroics placed him at No.8, chasing behind Zimbabwe’s Heath Streak (79 not out) and Bangladesh’s Naeem Islam (73 not out) in a winning match.
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Chahar’s big-batting effort on the pitch, described by captain Shikhar Dhawan as “better” than the first ODI, which India won by Cantor (by 7 wickets), came chasing 275. He put on 84 runs for the unbroken seventh wicket. – 193 for 7 in the 36th over (35.1) to 277 for 7 in the 50th over (49.1). Had fallen to 166 for 6.
India have pinned their hopes on left-armer Kunal Pandya, the fastest to score a half-century on his ODI debut, who showed the way. But as soon as it happened, Chahar was destined to write a brilliant script for himself and his side. He had scored 18 runs in his last four innings, the first of which was against Afghanistan in Dubai in September 2018. Then a year later, he played two matches against West Indies in Chennai and Visakhapatnam. His highest score in four matches was 12 against Afghanistan. There are 65 batsmen who have scored half-centuries at number 8 in 4310 ODIs.
Chahar should consider himself lucky that the BCCI has scheduled a white-ball series against Sri Lanka. After his debut, Chahar was not picked for 44 matches as India’s regular fast bowlers were given preference. As a new ball operator, he has only one match, and he has sent his full quota of ten overs against the West Indies at Chepauk. Even in the first ODI in Sri Lanka, he was seen in action in only seven overs. He has taken six wickets at an average of 36.50. Chahar though has been more effective with the white ball in Twenty20 Internationals, taking 18 wickets at 20.11.
The Agra-born Chahar has been around the BCCI domestic circuit for over a decade, plying his trade for Rajasthan, for which he has taken 126 first-class wickets. As a batsman he is 35 runs away from 1000 runs. In all three forms of the game, he has been exemplary in Twenty20 matches, taking 120 wickets in senior BCCI tournaments including the IPL.
As a batsman, he has yet to make an impact by scoring half-centuries on only five occasions across all formats. Hence his performance with the bat against the run of the match in Colombo should be kept as a brilliant one.
Bhuvneshwar Kumar, who has closely watched all the thrilling action, revealed that coach Rahul Dravid decided to send Kumar, who averages 14.42 in 113 ODIs. It was a gamble that clicked, but the batsman displayed a determined determination with his limited batting talent.
It was a match that Manish Pandey and Yadav threatened to take away from the home team, but after his dismissal, Chahar Bahadur came out on the chips down.
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