Indian leg-spinner Yuzvendra Chahal may not be around the national setup anymore, however, he is still making noise with his bowling whenever and wherever he plays. It was the County Championship this time around where Chahal, playing for Northamptonshire, registered a six-wicket haul against Derbyshire in a relief for the veteran after going wicketless last week against Yorkshire in Northwood. It was a good batting track in Northampton yet again but Chahal had the visitors in a spin.
Derbyshire were five down for 89, with Chahal taking three of those wickets. Martin Andersson's hundred, combined with contributions all through the middle and lower order, meant that Derbyshire made a strong comeback with the bat, pushing Northants' bowling attack to their limit. However, Chahal stayed amidst wickets, ending up with three more while Liam Guthrie, George Scrimshaw, Rob Keogh and Luke Procter shared one apiece.
The veteran leg-spinner last played for India a couple of years ago and hasn't been part of the squad since the T20 World Cup last year. However, the 35-year-old continues to ply his trade in domestic cricket in India, including the IPL and on occasional County stints and still keeps making noise with his wicket-taking ability.
Chahal finished with figures of 6/118. Derbyshire did get to a strong score of 377 but Chahal's spell did play an important role in the hosts restricting them to something below 400. In response, the Northampton batters came out swining. After the fifties from captain Luke Procter and George Bartlett, Keogh and Justin Broad slammed hundreds to help the Northants take the lead, rather easily.
The lead is already in excess of 100 and Northants will be keen to bat once and hope to bowl out Derbyshire in the second innings. Both teams have won two games each in the ongoing Division Two Championship, but Derbyshire have lost just two and hence are four spots ahead in the table ahead of Northants.
