Yuzvendra Chahal takes on India's second-youngest Grandmaster in online chess tournament

India leg-spinner Yuzvendra Chahal, who is a former Junior Chess champion recently participated in an online blitz event organised by chess.com which featured India's second-youngest Grandmaster, R Praggnanandhaa.

Chahal, who has an Elo rating of 1956 represented India at the Asian and World Junior Championships and won the National U-12 Championship in Kolkata back in 2002.

The Haryana-based tweaker intended to carve a career out of playing chess, but had to give up on his dreams after he failed to land sponsors. Chahal then took to cricket, and on the back of some impressive performances in the domestic circuit, he was signed by the Mumbai Indians for IPL 2011.

Chahal then went on to make his India debut in 2016, and since then has played 52 ODIs and 42 T20Is for the national team.

The leg-spinner spoke to Grandmaster Abhijeet Gupta and International Master Rakesh Kulkarni about how he is implementing his learnings from chess into cricket.

"In a Test match, you may have bowled well in a day, but not got wickets, but you have to come back the next day so you need to be patient. Chess has helped me a lot in that way. I have learnt to be patient and get batsmen out, " said Chahal.

The RCB spinner also turned the clock back to when he had to make the choice between cricket and chess.

"I had to chose between chess and cricket. I spoke to dad who said the choice was (yours). I had more interest in cricket and opted for it," he added.

As part of the online event, Chahal took part in bouts against Praggnanandhaa, Grandmasters B Adhiban, Nihar Sarin and Kartikeyan Murali among other competitors.