DRAVID’S GIFT TO GOPAL AND CHAHAR’S ODI DEBUT IN DUBAI

Rajasthan’s leg spinner Shreyas Gopal owes a lot to his idols Rahul Dravid and Anil Kumble. Hailing from Bangalore, he was fortunate to meet and talk with these two legends from his state. In fact, he has even modelled his action on Kumble, who is the coach of the Kings XI Punjab in this IPL. Gopal is also a technically sound batsman. He owes it to watching Dravid’s batting style. In 2012, Dravid, after watching

Gopal play in a local tournament, gave him a few of his bats and a pair of pads that he had used during his tour of England in 2011. Gopal, who was just 19 years old then, was thrilled by that gesture and got motivated to work harder.

REJECTED CHAHAR’S COMEBACK AND ODI DEBUT IN DUBAI

Chennai pacer Deep Chahar, who claimed two out of the three Rajasthan Royals wickets that fell in Monday’s match against Chennai, has had many ups and down in this career, but he has been a fighter all the way. At the age of 16, he was rejected by Greg Chappell who was then Director of the Rajasthan Cricket Academy. Chahar refused to get disheartened and worked hard. By the age of 18, he impressed everyone through his bowling, and in his Ranji Trophy debut in 2010, he bagged eight wickets for 10 runs from seven overs to bowl out Hyderabad for a mere 21 runs. He then went on to make his ODI and T20 debut for India in 2018. Incidentally, it was at the Dubai International Stadium that he had made his ODI debut against Afghanistan in the 2018 Asia Cup.