'GOAT in the making' - Twitter erupts as Yuzvendra Chahal bamboozles KKR with his four-wicket haul to become leading wicket-taker in IPL

Yuzvendra Chahal picked up 4/25 in his four overs.

Published - 11 May 2023, 21:33 IST | Updated - 11 May 2023, 21:24 IST

12 Min Read

Wrist spinner Yuzvendra Chahal etched his name in the record books as he became the highest wicket-taker in the history of IPL. The 32-year-old surpassed Dwayne Bravo’s tally of 183 wickets as he made Nitish Rana the 184^th victim of his IPL career on Thursday, May 11 at Eden Gardens in Kolkata.

Coming into bowl his first over during the 11^th over of the innings, Chahal bowled a tossed-up delivery to Rana who slog-swept it straight to Shimron Hetmyer at deep backward square-leg. The West Indian came running in and dived forward to take his second breathtaking catch of the match.

Chahal had already levelled Bravo’s record-wicket tally during Rajasthan Royals’ last fixture against Sunrisers Hyderabad and finally surpassed him against KKR. The Haryana-born spinner didn’t stop there and ended up picking three more wickets to break the back of KKR’s batting after they were put in to bat first by RR captain Sanju Samson.

After giving just three runs in his first over, Chahal was taken to the cleaners by Venkatesh Iyer, who smacked him for 15 runs in his second over. However, the wrist spinner made a terrific comeback in his third over sending a well-set Iyer (57 off 42) back on his way to the pavilion getting him caught by Trent Boult.

On the fourth ball of the over, Chahal trapped Shardul Thakur in front of the stumps to claim his third scalp. He returned in the 19^th over and got the prized scalp of the dangerous Rinku Singh who holed out at long-off.

Chahal gets the purple cap with 21 wickets to his name

The wrist-spinner finished his four-over spell with figures of 4/25 and helped Rajasthan to restrict KKR to 149/8 in their allotted 20 overs. Venkatesh Iyer was the top scorer with the bat for KKR while Chahal was the pick of the bowlers for RR with Trent Boult also picking 2/15 in his three overs.

Notably, Chahal won the coveted Purple Cap for finishing as the highest wicket-taker of IPL 2022, and with his sensational spell, he rose to the top of this year’s wicket-takers' list as well with 21 scalps to his name from 12 matches.

The India cricketer now has 186 wickets in his IPL career from 142 innings at an average of 21.36 and an economy of 7.64.

Meanwhile, Twitter was abuzz with reactions to Chahal’s historic achievement and his splendid spell.

Here are some of the Tweets:

Bhola Kumar🕉️@Bholakumar143

If RCB don't qualify this season, the culprit won't be any RCB player. RCB Poor management will be the responsible that they choose Harshal Patel over Yuzvendra Chahal. #Yuzi #Yuzvendra #rcb

09:25 PM · May 11, 2023

Parneet@Parneet_Singh22

India's biggest mistake was to not play Yuzvendra Chahal in t20 world cup. He is the best Indian spinner when it comes to T20. 🔥 #GOAT #KKRvsRR

09:25 PM · May 11, 2023

चैड जतिन 🇮🇳@chadjatin

#YuzvendraChahal Yuzvendra Chahal 🔥🔥

09:24 PM · May 11, 2023

Sanjit Datta@SanjitDatta194

1️⃣8️⃣7️⃣ Wickets !! Congratulations @yuzi_chahal for taking of highest Nos. of wickets in the #IPL history & it is in the #KKRvRR match. 🙌🙌👏👏 #IPL2023 #YuzvendraChahal

09:24 PM · May 11, 2023

Peaky Balvinder@peaky_balvinder

How Yuzvendra Chahal looks kkr today

09:24 PM · May 11, 2023

rezwan sadid@rezwanrahmansad

This IPL, Yuzvendra Chahal was struggling vs LHBs. Didn’t take enough wickets and was going at a rate of around 10 rpo. But, today, he picked up 3 wickets and conceded just 22 runs from 18 balls against LHB's. My guess is, today he bowled quite a few sliders against them +

09:24 PM · May 11, 2023