IPL 2025 - PBKS vs KKR: Yuzvendra Chahal, the wizard of Punjab

IPL 2025 - PBKS vs KKR: Six matches. 176 runs in 17 overs, and only four wickets taken. Average: 44. Economy: 10.35. Those were Yuzvendra Chahal’s stats in IPL 2025 after six games. Chahal, one of the IPL’s greatest-ever bowlers, suddenly seemed to be in freefall. Based on the evidence, there was some merit to that thought. The issue is, six matches and 17 overs is not enough of a sample. The bigger issue is, you never write off champion cricketers, because although age might catch up with them, their ability to be champions doesn’t go away. We should have always known that Chahal was capable of the kind of magic he showed when Punjab Kings defended 111 against a power-packed Kolkata Knight Riders batting line-up, who folded for 95 all out.

Chahal took 4 for 28 in four overs, and it should have been 4 for 24 if not for a slipped ball causing four overthrows. That Punjab still won by defending the lowest ever total in IPL history, was primarily down to Chahal.

The Ricky Ponting test

Chahal had injured his shoulder in Punjab’s previous game vs SRH, when he had gone for 56 runs in four overs. That was on April 12, and Punjab’s match against KKR was on April 15. He had three days to get his shoulder was right, and he passed the acid test: Ricky Ponting looking him in the eye and asking him if he was good to go.

“How good a spell of bowling was that!” Ponting gushed after the game. “He had a fitness test before the game today with a shoulder injury that he picked up in his last game. I grabbed him out of the warm-up, looked him in the eye and said, ‘Mate are you okay?’ He said, ‘Coach, I’m 100% right. Let me out there’. And… what a spell of bowling.”

This is standard Ponting procedure. When he was Australia captain, he would do the same thing to any player under an injury cloud: he looked Damien Martyn in the eye on the eve of the 2003 World Cup final when Martyn had a smashed finger. Martyn said he could play, Ponting accepted his word, and Martyn went on to stroke 88* off 84.

The magic in the middle

“When I bowled the first ball, it turned a bit,” Chahal said after the game. “So Shreyas (Iyer) asked me if I wanted a slip, and I said yes. Because we didn’t want to give them any margin. It shouldn’t be that a four goes through there and then we put in the slip.

“I knew that if I back my skill and deliver the ball the way I want to, I’ll get success.”

In his first over, a Chahal googly beat Ajinkya Rahane’s sweep. It looked so plumb in front that Rahane walked off without a review. Even though replays later showed he was struck outside the line, Chahal had earned the scalp with his bowling. In his next over, he had Angkrish Raghuvanshi spooning a catch to backward point. His next over caused mayhem, with Rinku Singh done in by a bit of wizardry and Ramandeep Singh out first ball.

The Rinku wicket had everything: drift, dip and turn. In fact, Chahal had found his length again this game. It helped perhaps that given Punjab’s low total, the only option was to attack relentlessly and look for wickets. It allowed Chahal to bowl in the way he was comfortable, and the results flowed.

As his captain Shreyas was to say later: “When we saw Yuzi come in and start turning the ball, our hopes and expectations went higher. From there on I just started believing that we can turn the game.”

How Chahal joined Punjab Kings

Bought for a hefty ₹18 crore at the IPL 2025 mega-auction, Chahal was eager to prove himself. In previous auctions, he had gone in the 6-7 crore range. Not because teams didn’t value him, but he was always in the specialist spinner sets, and came after the marquee players, batters, allrounders, and fast bowlers. This time, Chahal was in the marquee set. He drew bids from seven teams - including his former franchises RR and RCB - until Punjab beat down all opposition with their greater purse.

Whether Chahal does anything else or not, that was money well spent because it’s given Punjab one of their greatest wins in the IPL.