Chawla treasures scalping Gibbs

Leg-spinners have the habit of throwing imaginary balls from the back of their hands while talking, and 18-year-old Piyush Chawla is no different.

Leg-spinners have the habit of throwing imaginary balls from the back of their hands while talking, and 18-year-old Piyush Chawla is no different. It’s been more than a week since he foxed Herschelle Gibbs with a wrong ‘un and despite the flight from London, his fingers keep on dancing.

After landing in Mumbai, and before he took his connecting flight home, Chawla spoke to The Indian Express about his first One-Day International series against top quality opposition. He is busy attending his constantly ringing phone, but the mention of Gibbs’ wicket in his spell of 10-0-47-3 in the second one-dayer brought a smile on his face.

“He is an excellent batsman. He can dismantle any attack. But I have bowled to better players of spin in the India team nets, so I wasn’t really nervous. I bowled normally to him but I did take the precaution of not giving too much flight,” said Chawla.

Chawla said that he had Gibbs clean bowled on the first ball of his third over, but the plan was set in the last ball of his second over. The leggie had bowled a wrong ‘un that spun in from leg stump. When Chawla returned for the next over, he flighted a ball on the stumps but this time the ball didn’t spin but straightened to find a way between the bat and pad to hit the stumps.

Chawla said conditions in Ireland were tough, but he added that he was used to the biting cold. “It was difficult to grip the ball but I was focused and didn’t try to bowl too hard. I come from north India where we sometimes find similar kind of cold weather, so it wasn’t tough adjusting. I represented India U-19 to England in past and that experience also helped,” said Chawla.

Emphasising the importance of ‘good performance’ at this stage of his career he said: “There is nothing like a easy or difficult series.”

He said: “If I had not performed well against Bangladesh, they would have said I wasn’t even good enough to get wickets against a weak side. Any opponent is tough to bowl to for me,”

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By now it was time for him to catch the next flight. But before that, his fingers dance again, this time on the cell phone. “Amma, mein pahunch gaya,” as he got through to his mother. Loosely translated, that meant “I have arrived.” And in every sense of the word, it was true.