The game of cricket has seen several brothers from the same household. Notably, the Chappell brothers, Flower brothers, Marshall brothers, Hussey brothers and the Pathan brothers, all have brought laurels back home after representing their nations.
Thanks to the Indian Premier League (IPL), the tournament has given the world another pair of talented brothers in the form of Deepak Chahar and Rahul Chahar.
Chahar family stands divided in loyalty by choosing opposite camps in the arch-rivalry of Chennai Super Kings (CSK) and Mumbai Indians (MI).
Whatever the case may be, whenever the old-foes met in the IPL in the 2019 edition, father and coach Lokander Singh Chahar must have been the proudest, witnessing his two sons facing off.
Chahar’s dad during a recent interview talked about how he was instrumental in modelling Deepak’s action, looking at greats Dale Steyn and Malcolm Marshall.
“Everyone looks at Deepak and thinks that he has this natural ability to swing the ball at speeds of over 140 km/hr. But the reality is very different. I looked at bowlers like Dale Steyn and Malcolm Marshall who were swinging the ball at very high speeds. I knew that India could use such a bowler. And that’s how Deepak and I worked at his technique,” Chahar’s dad explained talking to Manish Batavia on SpicyPitch.
Deepak concurred by detailing bowling drills with his dad, bowling a massive number of outswingers and inswingers.
Chahar recently made an impact in T20I cricket after his 6/8 spell against Bangladesh last year. Thereby, he ended with the best spell in T20I cricket and became the only Indian to take a hat-trick in the shortest format of the game.
“I would bowl 500 deliveries to my father every single day — 250 in swingers and 250 outswingers. For me, it’s not about natural talent— it’s all about understanding what you need to be and working hard every single day to get there. Regrets are the one thing I don’t want to have when I look back on my career,” concluded Deepak Chahar.
Later into the conversation, Chahar senior talked about how he was also responsible for converting Rahul into a leg-spinner after initially taking up pace bowling.
