Chawla satisfied with show on return

After a four-year gap, Piyush Chawla made his return to Test cricket a memorable one, grabbing four wickets that helped India restrict England to 330 in their first innings of the fourth Test at the VCA stadium.

“There is always pressure whenever you play but there was little bit more pressure this time because I was making a comeback to the Indian team after a long wait of four years. But the way it has started I think it has been good,” Chawla told reporters at the end of the fourth day’s play.

But Chawla’s assessment of himself made for a rather curious listening. He hadn’t set the domestic season ablaze to merit a return to the Indian side purely on the basis of statistics but he blamed his modest run in the Ranji Trophy to the nature of pitches.

“If you consider the type of wickets on which we played the Ranji Trophy matches this season I would say I did well. We were playing mostly on seaming tracks so I would say my performance was good in that sense,” Chawla, who has replaced Harbhajan Singh in the side, said.

The leg-spinner also defended the struggling Indian batsmen. The top-order came up with another brittle performance on the day, that saw India reeling at 87 for four and 243 runs in arrears of England’s total of 330.

“This is a phase that (batsmen struggling) happens. It is not that our batting has flopped big time as we have managed to get around 300-350 in every match. It has not affected the bowlers because as a bowling unit we have done well,” he added.

However, Chawla admitted that the Indian bowlers failed to keep England under 300
after plucking five wickets on Thursday. “We thought if we get one wicket to start with in the morning we can stop them somewhere under the 300-run mark but Joe Root and Prior batted really well. But when we broke that partnership we recovered really well,” he said.

So, was there anyway India could regain the lost ground? “We lost a few quick wickets but we still have two quality batsmen at the crease and they are having a good partnership and seeing the ball really well. Let’s hope for the best because the way these guys are middling the ball we could have a good session tomorrow,” Chawla added.