The leg spinner Chahal, who was included for the ODI series against South Africa after being ignored for the Asia Cup and World Cup, will no longer take part in Haryana’s campaign due to his commitment with the national team.
But that doesn’t seem to deter Chahal’s spirit as he decided to cheer for his team from Johannesburg during the semi-final fixture against Tamil Nadu.
‘We’ve come this far, let’s get the job done. Will be rooting for us Haryana, from Johannesburg!’ Chahal posted on X.
Talking about the match, Bengal managed 225 all out in 50 overs, largely due to Shahbaz Ahmed’s stellar hundred that had four sixes and as many boundaries.
Such was Bengal’s plight that the next best score was 24 by keeper-opener Abhishek Porel. Had it not been for the 52 runs added between Shahbaz and Pradipta Pramanik (21) for seventh wicket and another 33 for the ninth wicket with Suman Das (7) Bengal would have struggled to go past the 200-run mark.
Chahal was literally unplayable and most of the Bengal batters failed to read his wrong ‘uns.
In reply, Haryana were 14 for 2 within the first five overs but Ankit Kumar (102 off 102 balls) and Ashok Menaria (39) added 126 for the third wicket to put the chase back on track.
It was Gujarat Titans’ Rahul Tewatia (21), who calmly got the team past target in just 45.1 overs.