India and Chennai Super Kings (CSK) bowling all-rounder Deepak Chahar reminisced the words of MS Dhoni which made him focus on his batting. It was the day when Dhoni announced his retirement from international cricket in 2020.

Now, Chahar is a key bowler with the new ball and he has also improved his batting, having played a few important knocks for India lately. No wonder, CSK were ready to spend heavily on him in the IPL 2022 mega-auction and paid INR 14 crore to sign him.

ALSO READ: IPL 2022: Deepak Chahar reveals what MS Dhoni and CSK told him when he joined the franchise in 2018

"One day Mahi bhai said to me… 'you have done a good job with the bowling but haven't justified your batting. I think you should do that'. He told me the day he announced his retirement. We were sitting in the evening and talking. Dhoni said I should focus more on batting," Chahar told SportsYaari on their YouTube channel.

Chahar went on to reveal that there was a time when his batting peaked more than his bowling. However, due to a lack of match practice and opportunities, he couldn't maintain the same skill.

"I have been batting since I was young and this pursuit of being an all-rounder had started back then itself. In 2017-18, I used to bat better because I was at home and so I used to practice batting a lot. In fact, I used to focus more on batting than bowling because there was a limit on the number of balls you would bowl in one day because doing more would take a toll on your body," he said.

"When I went to Pune (Rising Pune Supergiants), I reckon my batting was better than my bowling. But after that, when I started playing more, especially overseas, I didn’t get much chances to perform with the bat. The amount of practice would come down. Whenever I played First-Class, the main batters would get more time. Because of this, the fluency in my batting got affected."

Chahar had played a match-winning knock against Sri Lanka last year in which he scored an unbeaten 69 runs. He became the highest scorer for India, batting at No. 8.

India were struggling at 193/7 in chase of 275, and the all-rounder pulled off a chase to remember forever. "When I scored that half-century against Sri Lanka, I started off very slowly. 

"In the first 25-30 balls, I didn't even play shots because I wasn't confident myself of them coming off. Before that, for the previous 5-6 months, I hadn't batted. But when you play regularly and do well in matches, the rhythm starts returning," he said.

(With Sports Yaari Inputs)