Piyush Chawla recently signed for Somerset in an effort to revive hopes of getting back to the national team and in order to make the stint count he has also been putting on the performances in the county circuit. Recently he scored a century against Middlesex he scored a century at Lord’s which is often referred to as the Home of Cricket. When he came in his side was in some trouble with a scoreline that read 211 for 7. However, he eked out a decent 112 from 170 balls and lifted the team to a much better 417 for 9 when he was out.
While speaking to the media Piyush revealed how amazed he was at the overall feeling of having been able to score a century at the hallowed turf of Lord’s and felt the applause a player gets after scoring a century over there and while walking through the corridors is priceless. The leg spinning all-rounder has revealed how he had nurtured the dream of being congratulated by the Lord’s crowd one day because of the way they congratulate a performer. Piyush has also been rather modest while speaking about his century, terming the wicket difficult and saying that he could only get a “decent” score after getting acclimatized to the wicket after the first 8 overs.
Chawla is not new to county cricket – he has previously played for Sussex. He has stated that it was that experience which helped him tide over the early bounce and movement that the pitch was offering. He has also stated that county cricket always offers a lot to learn and is thus a major help for any cricketer. Speaking about his century Chawla has humorously stated that even though the names of first class centurions are not engraved on the Honor’s Board at Lord’s one day he shall at least be able to tell a story to his kids that he has a century at Lord’s.
However, Chawla was less than effusive while considering his chances of getting back to the national team. Even though the match went well for him on the whole as he added 3 wickets to his century he says he does not want to look too far ahead of himself. He stated that at present he is just looking to perform at every given opportunity and has expressed confidence that he will one day come back in the national team.
Truth to be told, Chawla is perfectly right in his thoughts of not getting too far ahead of himself. He is primarily a bowling all-rounder and at the present moment he has three big names – Ravindra Jadeja, Ravichandran Ashwin and Amit Mishra – before him. He shall also need to perform better than the likes of Harbhajan Singh, Rahul Sharma and Parvez Rasool if he wants to succeed the big 3 in case they lose form or are injured. The queue is long indeed but Chawla needs to keep believing in himself and perform so that one day selectors have no choice but to play him.
