Was camera shy till 2014, but my personality changed after joining RCB: Yuzvendra Chahal

Yuzvendra Chahal has assumed a dual responsibility for the Indian cricket team. Not only does he serve the team as a leg-spinner, but also as an anchor. Yuzvendra Chahal hosts a show named after himself, ‘Chahal TV’, in which he interviews cricketers after matches and also shows behind-the-scenes footage from the ground.

In a recent interaction with ESPNcricinfo, Yuzvendra Chahal looked back at a series in which the team’s media manager randomly asked him to interview Manish Pandey after a game and that gave birth to ‘Chahal TV’.

“This concept started during the last T20 in Chennai against West Indies, Manish Pandey won the game for us off the last ball…our media manager asked me if I could do this interview and in jest it came out that ‘Chahal TV pe aapka swagat hai…’; we got very positive response on Chahal TV, so we made it a regular feature after every match – some serious questions balanced out with funny/joking questions…in a good way you find out about the atmosphere of the team,” Chahal said.

The leg-spinner also revealed that he was camera shy until 2014, but once he joined Royal Challengers Bangalore in the IPL his personality changed and he became a lot more confident. The frequent media interactions made him overcome his shyness.

IPL interactions helped: Yuzvendra Chahal

“Till about 2014 I was quite camera shy. When I came to RCB and won the man-of-the-match award, my personality changed completely after 2015. You get a lot of invites from people during IPL and you have to chat with a lot of people, talk on the stage."

"I realised that I have a bond with people…I am only serious when I am bowling on the ground, when the match doesn’t go well, I think about it for half an hour. I am not the kind of person who will think about it for 3-4 hours otherwise I’ll put too much pressure on myself,” he added.

Yuzvendra Chahal has so far played 52 ODIs and 42 T20Is in which he has scalped 91 and 55 wickets respectively.