'Greg Chappell told Deepak Chahar to find another job' - Venkatesh Prasad

Deepak Chahar pulled off a sensational win for India in the second ODI against Sri Lanka. At 193-7, the match looked done and dusted for India but Chahar played an unbelievable knock of unbeaten 69 to take India home. The innings drew the 28-year-old applauds from the cricket fraternity who hailed it as one of the best knocks by a lower-order batsman. Not just the runs, but the immense temperament Chahar showed during the knock shows he has enough in him to serve as a genuine all-rounder for India.

Chahar rose the ranks with some scintillating performances in the domestic circuit and IPL. However, you must be shocked to know that the pacer was rejected by the former India coach Greg Chappell for his height. Former India pacer Venkatesh Prasad revealed the incident and said Chappell told Chahar to find another job as he has no scope of succeeding in cricket. Prasad was referring to an old incident when Chappell was associated with the Rajasthan Cricket Academy as a director.

“Deepak Chahar was rejected by Greg Chappell at RCA for his height and told to look at a different occupation. And he single handedly won a match with not even his primary skills,” Prasad tweeted.

“Moral of the story- Believe in yourself and don’t take overseas coaches too seriously,” said the 51-year-old Prasad who played 33 Tests with 96 wickets between 1996 and 2001.

Chahar has previously proved his credentials as an all-rounder in IPL. Playing for Chennai Super Kings in IPL 2018, Chahar’s 39 helped MS Dhoni’s men pull off an unlikely win against Kings XI Punjab. Rahul Dravid too was aware of his skills with the bat and thus promoted him ahead of Bhuvneshwar Kumar in the second ODI.