Deepak Chahar may not be back at his best yet but his powerplay incisiveness is pivotal to CSK

Over the past year or so, not many bowlers have been ravaged by injuries as much as Deepak Chahar. At the mega-auction last year, Chennai Super Kings (CSK) broke the bank to acquire his services but he did not feature at all in the 2022 edition.

This season, he started CSK's first couple of games before tweaking his hamstring against the Mumbai Indians (MI). He then missed a few matches in April before returning to the fold against the Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) in early May.

Thus, there were question marks over how effective he would be, and if he would become the powerplay weapon CSK needed him to be. His first outing after injury in Lucknow was not very enterprising but since then, he seems to have embarked on an upward trajectory.

One of the reasons why CSK wanted to bring Chahar back on board at the mega-auction in 2022 was his ability to take wickets in the powerplay. Quite often, that happens with him getting lots of swing and deceiving the batters with movement.

Throughout his IPL career, he has picked up 47 wickets in the powerplay, which is the seventh-best in the history of the competition.

Trent Boult, largely considered one of the best new-ball bowlers on the planet, has as many wickets in this phase. However, the New Zealand pacer has taken almost nine overs more (53 balls) than Chahar to get to that tally.

Deepak Chahar has picked up four wickets in the powerplay in his last two matches for CSK

If Chahar is picking up wickets, it allows his side to apply pressure in the middle overs. Against the Mumbai Indians, who have been one of the standout batting units in the IPL, CSK picked up three wickets in the powerplay and eventually restricted them to 139.

Against the Delhi Capitals (DC), CSK reduced DC to 47-3, which then set the stage for Moeen Ali and Ravindra Jadeja to weave a web around the visiting batters.

Contrast that to their game against the Punjab Kings (PBKS). The four-time champions had put up 200 in a day fixture at Chepauk, yet, failed to defend it. They conceded 62 in the powerplay and only managed to take a solitary wicket.

In both fixtures they have lost to the Rajasthan Royals, the Super Kings have shipped a total of 121 runs (57 at Chepauk; 64 at Jaipur), while picking up just one wicket.

So, there is a clear correlation. CSK are, at times, so good in the middle overs that they get over poor and slightly non-incisive powerplays – like they have done against Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) and Mumbai Indians (in Mumbai) this season. But there is no denying that if they pick up wickets in the powerplay, the game opens up for them. Once that happens, it is really tough to stop them.

In that pursuit, Deepak Chahar is absolutely pivotal. Not only is he capable of scalping wickets, he can build enough pressure to force mistakes at the other end. And so far, since returning from his hamstring injury, he has done just enough to give CSK the bowling starts they have craved.

Of course, no one is suggesting that Chahar is back to his best. He still seems to be bowling a yard slower than the speeds he usually operates at, and looks just that little bit ginger in the field. After the match against DC, he even admitted that he was not a 100 percent fit and that he was not completely free of the injury shackles.

Despite all of that, he took out David Warner and Phil Salt in the powerplay – two batters who could have inflicted a lot of damage and taken the game away from CSK.

The balls that dismissed Salt and Warner were not great deliveries either but it went into the scorecard as wickets, and that is what matters, at this stage.

In an ideal world, CSK and Chahar himself would want to swing the ball round corners, perhaps pitch it on leg and peg back off stump, and induce outside edges with batters not sure whether they should play at deliveries or leave them.

The IPL, though, is not utopian, and in fact, has been very unforgiving for bowlers. It is also important to understand that Chahar is coming off multiple injury lay-offs.

From that perspective, the fact that he has now played three consecutive games for CSK is victory in itself. That he is slowly doing what he does best in the powerplay, and giving CSK the platform to flourish later in the innings, is the icing on the cake.

He may not be back at his best yet, but as long as he keeps picking up wickets in the powerplay, CSK will not mind.