Best Chess player in Indian cricket team, it’s not Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Hardik Pandya or R Ashwin

Chess involves not just skill but strategy, much like in cricket. Captains like India legend MS Dhoni lay intricate field settings like pieces of chess to set up batsmen for brilliant dismissals. The smartest tacticians of the Indian cricket team like Dhoni are ex-skipper Virat Kohli, current skipper Rohit Sharma and Hardik Pandya.

When it comes to the game of chess, a few members of the Indian team play while traveling between matches and practice. But the ace tactician appears to be Yuzvendra Chahal. The leg-spinner, in fact, has played chess at competitive level. Chahal has represented India on the international stage in the World Youth Chess Championship.

“In the Indian team, there is no one who can beat me,” Chahal recently revealed with a laugh. “Sometimes I play with R Ashwin, and then there is Shanker Basu, our trainer with whom I used to play. We used to play quite a bit during the flights and when we were traveling,” he added.

Chahal was recently roped in by Global Chess League team SG Alpine Warriors as their ambassador. He credits chess for teaching him patience which has helped him on the cricket field. While acknowledging that chess and cricket are “similar”, Chahal pointed out a major difference, “In cricket, you can show your aggression, but in chess, you can’t. It is all about how calm you are in chess.”

(Inputs from PTI)