It is not new that Team India leg-spinner Yuzvendra Chahal was a national-level chess player before he took up cricket as a profession. Recently, he revealed the difficulties he faced as a youngster in balancing both the sports. And eventually, what led him to choose cricket as his career option.
Meanwhile, even before Chahal made a name for himself as a cricketer, he had carved a niche for himself in chess. The cricketer from Haryana represented India at the World Youth Chess Championship and had played the sport at the national level.
Yuzvendra Chahal reveals when he left chess to pursue cricket
However, as Chahal ventured into cricket, he found it difficult to strike a balance between cricket and chess. It was then when he decided to concentrate on one game as he found it difficult to concentrate on two games at one point in time.
“I played my first nationals of Chess in 1998 and at that time I was playing cricket as well. You can’t play both sports at the same time. For Chess, you need 10 – 12 hours of training and then 6 – 8 hours for cricket was getting very difficult.
So, when I came back from the World Cup, I told my father I will focus only on cricket.” Chahal told Subramaniam Badrinath on the show Mind Masters by MFORE on Star Sports.
Meanwhile, reports earlier surfaced that Yuzvendra Chahal failed to grab a sponsor which compelled him to focus more on cricket. The 28-year-old recently revealed that both games are more or less similar as it requires a lot of patience to attain the pinnacle spot.
“In chess, you require a lot of patience as every match is about 6 – 7 hours and you’re playing sitting at one place without speaking much. Similarly, in cricket, you sometimes bowl so well but don’t get wickets. So, you have to be patient and keep it in your mind that you are bowling well and you’ll probably get wickets in the next spell,” he mentioned.