If you venture to compile a list of the players who have become inextricably associated with Kolkata Knight Riders over the years, one of the first names that is bound to spring to your mind is Piyush Chawla. After having represented Kings XI Punjab for six seasons (2008-13), the leg-spinner was purchased by Kolkata Knight Riders for INR 4.25 crore at the 2014 auction. Since then, Chawla has become one of the most vital components of the KKR set-up, and it was his cameo of 13* off 5 balls towards the end against Kings XI Punjab in the 2014 final, which helped KKR win their second IPL title. 

Chawla, on Monday afternoon, addressed a group of reporters in a pre-season press conference at the ITC Sonar in Kolkata, where he was questioned on a wide range of subjects such as the much talked about topic of workload management of World Cup-bound players, Kuldeep Yadav’s meteoric rise on the international circuit, the growing demand for leg-spinners the world over, his thoughts about KKR’s spin department this season et cetera.

A member of two world champion Indian squads (the 2007 World T20 and the 2011 Cricket World Cup), Chawla feels as professional cricketers, everyone should devise a way to manage his workload. ‘’The IPL is as big as international cricket. There is obviously workload on everyone, but somehow you’ll have to manage certain things on your own. Each player knows his body well, so everyone knows when to play and when to take a break’’, he said.

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The wrist-spin duo of Yuzvendra Chahal and Kuldeep Yadav has been one of India’s biggest strengths in limited-overs cricket in recent times. However, the wickets in England generally do not offer much assistance to slow bowlers. When asked whether the Kul-Cha pair would be effective on English pitches, the thirty-year-old replied, ‘’Both of them have done really well for India of late. Kuldeep has grown into a match-winner and even Chahal bowled well in the final ODI in Australia. So, I think the combination will work well for India in the World Cup, too. It’s always an advantage for the team when it has two wrist-spinners playing together and especially when both are wicket takers.’’

Karnataka’s KC Cariappa, who last played for KKR in 2015, was named replacement for the injured Shivam Mavi on Sunday. Chawla believes that Cariappa’s good performance in the recently concluded Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 tournament, in which he picked up 10 wickets from 11 games at an economy rate of 5.02, has earned him a place in the KKR squad for IPL 2019. ‘’The way he (Cariappa) bowled in the Syed Mushtaq Ali tournament showed that he has improved a lot. We hope that he carries that confidence into the IPL and bolsters our spin department. We’ve got one of the best spin-bowling attacks in the competition, and we just have to deliver whenever we enter the field’’, he said.

With Kamlesh Nagarkoti and Shivam Mavi having been ruled out, KKR’s Indian pace unit appears slightly emaciated. Would that put added pressure on the spinners? Chawla says that as a spinner, he enjoys taking challenges. ‘’If you’re talking [about experience], even those two (Mavi and Nagarkoti) were thin on experience. Sandeep Warrier has been brought in as replacement for Nagarkoti and he has played a lot of domestic cricket. I’ve been playing my cricket for over eleven years now, and Sunny (Sunil Narine) has also done well for us. There is always pressure on the spinners—particularly in the T20 format—because you are called upon to bowl during the powerplay sometimes as well as during the slog overs. But, I enjoy taking challenges’’, he affirmed.

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In the recently concluded ODI series against Australia—which India lost 2-3—Kuldeep Yadav, who has an overall ODI bowling average of 21.74, picked up 10 wickets at an average of 30.20. Many experts have started to opine that the chinaman bowler has lost his ‘mystery element’. However, Chawla refuses to buy into such hypotheses. ‘’Well, Kuldeep himself has said many times in the past that he is not a mystery spinner. ‘Mystery spinner’ is just a myth according to me. He is a very skilful bowler and as your career progresses, you need to enhance your skills. I worked a lot with him while I was playing for UP and at KKR as well’’, Chawla added.

Cariappa’s addition has added more variety to KKR’s spin department, says Omkar Salvi

Only the first two weeks’ fixtures of IPL 2019 have been announced as yet, and with the Lok Sabha elections in West Bengal slated to be held in seven phases from April 11 to May 19, it remains an uncertainty as to whether KKR would be able to play all their home matches at the Eden Gardens. ‘’Playing at the Eden Gardens is something that we look forward to because the crowds always support us, and we would really want to play all our home games over here. If you ask me from the pitch point of view, I think we have the bowling armoury to conquer any conditions in the country’’, he stated.

Chawla has
the distinction of bowling 1,020 dot balls in the IPL—the fifth highest in the
history of the tournament. When asked about his modus operandi, Chawla said
that wrist-spinners, despite being expensive at times, are more likely to take
wickets than other breeds of bowlers, by virtue of being more attacking.
‘’Everybody goes for runs these days, but wrist-spinners are being preferred
more in today’s cricket because they have more chances of taking wickets’’, he
said.