Veteran leg-spinner Piyush Chawla may have found it difficult to establish a place in Team India’s starting XI, but he has never fallen short of suitors in the Indian T20 League circuit since the very beginning.
Between 2008-2013, Chawla played for Team Punjab and picked 84 wickets during the tenure. That makes up for a whopping 53.85 per cent of his total wickets (156) in the Indian T20 League.
From 2014 to 2019, Chawla represented Team Kolkata and took 66 wickets for them. In 2020, he moved to Team Chennai and after playing just seven matches that year, he was bought by Team Mumbai ahead of the 2021 Indian T20 League season.
Despite being a part of the Indian T20 League since 2008, Chawla has maintained his economy at 7.87 and is the fourth-highest wicket-taker in the competition’s history. And thus, it comes as no surprise that he has troubled some of the best batsmen in his T20 career.
Batsmen dismissed most number of times by Piyush Chawla in T20 cricket
Of the many players he has dismissed in the shortest format, a certain Ambati Rayudu - his former Chennai teammate - remains his favourite victim. The Chennai batsman has fallen to Piyush Chawla on six occasions; most Chawla has dismissed a player in his T20 career.
| Player | Number of dismissals |
| Ambati Rayudu | 6 |
| Suresh Raina | 4 |
| Brendon McCullum | 4 |
| AB de Villiers | 4 |
| Virat Kohli | 3 |
The list is followed by the likes of Suresh Raina, another Chennai batsman, and hard-hitters like Brendon McCullum and AB de Villiers, all of whom he bagged four times. Indian cricket team captain Virat Kohli and Australian all-rounder Shane Watson feature in the list too. The duo has been dismissed on three occasions by the leg-spinner.
Piyush Chawla may have played just seven Twenty20 Internationals for India, but he has gone on to establish himself as one of the veterans of the Indian T20 League.
Featured photo: AFP / Manjunath Kiran
