India vs Bangladesh 2019: Yuzvendra Chahal says 'no pressure' on young players to perform

After a surprising seven-wicket loss in the first T20I at the hands of Bangladesh, Indian leg-spinner Yuzvendra Chahal has clarified that there wasn’t any pressure from the team management to perform. Instead, the young players were given the freedom to play their natural game.

Speaking at a press conference ahead of the second match, Chahal said:

“A couple of matches can go wrong but there is no pressure from the management. The only thing is that we shouldn’t repeat the mistakes that we commit in any particular match.”

Australian vice-captain Alex Carey recently talked about having specialized roles for each player in the T20I side - a set of bowlers selected to bowl at particular junctions of the match, and a similar case for the batsmen. That is something the Indian team management have been trying to implement too.

Alex Carey

Reiterating that, Chahal stated that each player knew what their specific role was and that the home team had every chance of bouncing back in the series. He said:

“The 11 that are playing now, and the players who are there in the 15-member squad they know their roles, it is not like someone is going out after playing one or two matches… I think we are positive. It is not like we haven’t lost the first match of any series and didn’t go on to win the series. The first match is done, if you think about the last match then negatives will come into mind. We are one down and still two matches to go and obviously if we believe in ourselves we will come back.”

Talking about his performance, Chahal said that variation was the key to success in this format, and that bowling at the same lengths and pace over and over again can cost the team runs.

Chahal had figures of one for 24 in his four overs but could've easily got more had Rishabh Pant not faulted on two DRS reviews in the same Chahal over.

Rishabh Pant

Chahal added:

“Whenever I bowl, I vary the pace because otherwise it becomes easy for the batsmen if you bowl at the same pace... The wicket was such there that if you vary the pace it will get difficult for batsmen because the ball was turning, so you need to vary the length according to the batsman.”

The second T20I of the series will be played on 7 November in Rajkot followed by the last T20I in Nagpur on 10 November. A two-match Test series will take place after that, with the second one being India's first-ever day-night Test encounter.