Not many cricketers can brag about sharing the dressing room with the only father-son pair to ever play in the Indian Premier League. Sachin Tendulkar represented the Mumbai Indians for six seasons – 2008 to 2013 – and nine years later, the Master Blaster’s son Arjun made his MI debut in 2023. With that the Tendulkar legacy expanded, as did the MI family. Having signed him at the IPL 2022 mega auction at his base price of ₹20 lakh, Arjun waited one entire season before he had his moment under the sun.
The same year, incidentally, MI had also bought someone who had earned the distinction of being Sachin’s teammate 15 years ago on his India debut, and as fate would have it, was part of the MI camp when it was Arjun was in the same boat. Piyush Chawla was just 17 years old when he played his first game for India – against England in Mohali. A year later he won the 2007 T20 World Cup, and four more down the line, lifted the 2011 World Cup at home. Chawla is a two-time World Cup winner and continues to go strong in the year 2024 at 35 years old. Chawla, 35 has played his final match for India, but that doesn’t stop him from keep going in the IPL.
Asked as to whether he will retire first on MS Dhoni, pat came Chawla’s reply as he went on to narrate an incident with Prithvi Shaw which shows his zeal to carry on for another few years. “Mahi bhai. A while ago, Prithvi Shaw told me ‘Bas karo yaar ab PC bhai’. I said, I’ve played with Sachin paaji, and now playing with his son. I am playing with you, and after playing with you son, I will retire,” the veteran India spinner said on The Shubhankar Mishra show.
How Chawla proved his detractors wrong
For someone who has been part of the IPL for as long as the tournament has existed, Chawla has represented as many as four franchises. From starting off at Punjab Kings (then Kings XI Punjab), to becoming a two-time IPL winner with Kolkata Knight Riders, Chawla came aboard the MI ship, getting picked twice – once in 2021 and then in 2023. With MI spinners proving ineffective in IPL 2022, the franchise turned to Chawla the following year where he emerged as the team’s leading wicket taker that season. As questions were asked, as the old adage goes, Chawla let his experience and bowling do the talking.
“With due respect to everyone, MI had good spinners but somewhere down the line, experience matters. If a pressure situation arises, the way an experienced campaigner will handle it, a youngster won’t be able to. When we were 20-21, we used to bowl to escape punishment, now we do it to pick wickets. When people questioned, ‘Why Piyush Chawla, and this that?’, I said fine, let them talk. Then the same people started messaging me, posting on social media such as ‘PC is back, PC 2.0,” he added.
