ICC World Cup 2019 will be his first major global tournament in cricket, but Yuzvendra Chahal is already a consistent name in the Indian cricket team. When it comes to leg spinning Virat Kohli can surely look up to this young talent. In a recent interview, he has shared about his relationship with Kuldeep Yadav and talked about what MS Dhoni means to him.

On Teammates

While talking about his relationship with teammates, he said, “It’s not like that it’s limited to Kuldeep. Even if Jaddu bhaiya (Ravindra Jadeja) takes five wickets, we enjoy that.” But he didn’t forget to add how special the partnership between him and Kuldeep is. It feels nice to know that our partnership works. We know each other for seven-eight years. We were together at the Mumbai Indians. We trust each other. If I have a bad over, I know he will try to cover it up from the other end by being a bit defensive so that I can make a good comeback in my next over.

Yuzvendra Chahal Talked About Kuldeep Yadav and MS Dhoni

He added, “We do talk to each other over the phone. He’s (Kuldeep) like my younger brother. You need a few people to talk to you when you are down. When I have a rough phase, he talks to me. When we are not with the team, we like to be in our personal space, but it’s important to keep in touch too.”

This World Cup in all likelihood will be the last one for MS Dhoni. While talking about his influence and guidance, Chahal was all in praise. “Whatever happens, you need Mahi bhai. We still obey what he says. He intervenes when we go wrong. It was the same when we first arrived. Even today, if we plan something of our own, we feel the need to talk to him about it.”

On Selection

Both Kuldeep and Chahal have, according to the reports, replaced Ravindra Jadeja and Ravichandran Ashwin. Following the same, expectedly the duo will be under tremendous pressure. But Chahal, on this note, seemed much sorted. He said, “There was no pressure on us. We got an opportunity, and we grabbed it. There was a talk that Ashwin and Jadeja were left out at our expense. There’s nothing like that. We were just doing our job. We are not close to them in terms of the number of wickets they have taken together. Comparing us to them is as unfair as comparing Virat to Sachin Tendulkar.”

When asked about the importance of wrist spinners nowadays in the shorter formats, Chahal said, “We are feeding off the confidence of each other. We have done well in all conditions, and we have realized that we need to do the same thing. We don’t have to change according to conditions.”

Written By Shreyasi Dravid

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