IPL 2020 Final: Here's why Mumbai Indians dropped Rahul Chahar in place of Jayant Yadav against Delhi Capitals

At the toss of the ongoing IPL 2020 Final between Mumbai Indians and Delhi Capitals, Rohit Sharma announced that their star spinner Rahul Chahar was dropped in place of Jayant Yadav. We look at the reason behind this surprising move.

Image credits: Twitter/@IPL

In the ongoing all-important IPL 2020 Final between Mumbai Indians and Delhi Capitals, there was a big surprise in store for the millions of fans watching the game. At the toss, Mumbai Indians skipper Rohit Sharma announced that their star leg-spinner Rahul Chahar will not be playing the game and instead, Jayant Yadav will take part in the all-important tie.

 Rahul Chahar has become Mumbai’s frontline spinner since the past season and even this season, he has performed amicably – grasping 15 wickets from as many games at a decent economy rate 8.16. He sits at the 11th position in the Purple Cap standings which is a very good return for a young Indian leggie. So the big question is – Why was Chahar dropped for this big game ?

The answer was given by Sharma himself in the toss – He said that they chose Jayant Yadav, an all-rounder who bowls right-arm off spin, as Delhi has many left-handed batsmen. Thus, it was just a tactical decision where Delhi’s southpaws will find it tough to score when Jayant’s ball moves away from them. Delhi’s lineup is filled with left-handers Shikhar Dhawan, Rishabh Pant, Shemron Hetmyer and Axar Patel being the notable ones.

The decision paid off as Jayant bowled an economical spell of 4-0-25-1 and got the huge wicket of Shikhar Dhawan in just the fourth over of the innings, as he cleaned up the left-handed Dhawan (15 off 13 balls) with a regular off-spinner.