Armed with learnings from Rashid Khan’s mentorship, Yuvraj Chudasama looks for the big break

Yuvraj Chudasama is six foot two inches tall but holds no love for pace bowling.

The realisation came early when his father, a cricket coach, introduced him to the game in Bhavnagar. “I started when I was 12. When I was younger, I tried to bowl pace. I used to ask him, ‘If everyone bowls pace, why should I bowl spin?’ But I found out pretty quickly that that was not for me,” he says.

Chudasama’s father wanted him to give left-arm wrist spin a shot. But his son settled for right-arm leg-break eventually.

With his lanky frame and broad shoulders, Chudasama’s physical appearance flatters to deceive. He makes use of it the way he can, generating extra bounce with his leg breaks. He’s good at it, too. Since 2022, he has been a net bowler for Gujarat Titans, honing his skill shadowing Rashid Khan and Ashish Nehra.

“Almost every big batter has requested me to bowl to them. Sai Sudharsan, Shubman Gill, Hardik (Pandya) bhai when he was with us, even David Miller. I think that is because my googly is good, so they want to play me more,” Chudasama says.

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Net bowlers, the silent pliers in an IPL franchise’s set up, end up bowling for upto three hours at a stretch, Chudasama says. Between a hectic travel schedule and and little room between fixtures, managing workload becomes paramount.

“Being a net bowler is straining. More often than not you’re bowling a bulk of the deliveries. The first team bowlers turn up only in the closing minutes.

“Our coach is very cool. How much we want to bowl, depends on us. But on a day if I’m bowling, I end up bowling 15 to 20 overs across two to three hours. If, at times, you feel you cannot bowl, you can straight up tell them I want a break today. He’s very chilled out that way,” Chudasama says.

But nothing thrills Chudasama more, during his three-month gig with GT, than getting to play the understudy to Rashid, even if only in the nets.

“Rashid bhai taught me to read the batter. He told me that there’s not too much that separates me from an international bowler, and that I just need to try and see what the batter does against you. Try to see if the batter is naturally aggressive or passive against my bowling. Just bowl according to that. Then I also learnt when to use my variation, the googly and chance of pace. That comes with reading the match situation. So these things matter,” he says.

Despite his sustained tenure with the Titans, Chudasama has been handed limited chances with Saurashtra. Already 29, Chudasama has featured in just 15 T20s. He got two games in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy last season, one of them against Sikkim, and returned a wicket in each of the games. Competing for a spot with Dharmendrasinh Jadeja only makes the task stiffer. In IPL too, he’s remained on the fringes.

The career projectile is not much better in other formats either. He debuted for Saurashtra in 2018, against Baroda, and played just one more game, against Karnataka, after that. He has two wickets to show for across three innings, at an average of 101.

Ask him about his lack of game time, and Chudasama gives away a wry smile. His hopes now fall on the Saurashtra Pro T20 League, where he’s playing for Anmol Kings Halar. From five matches this season, he has taken just a single wicket, but has given away only 7.05 runs per over.

“ Kuch nahi, aur mehnat karenge, aur kya kar sakte hain (I will work even harder, what else can I do). This is a platform to get into the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, and then you hope you get picked by one of the franchises. That’s it,” he says.