India spinner Rahul Chahar joins Surrey for final Championship match of season

New Delhi [India], September 23 (ANI): India spinner Rahul Chahar has joined Surrey for their season-ending fixture against Hampshire at the Utilita Bowl this week. Going into the final, Surrey trails Nottinghamshire by 14 points. As a result, they need to win their final game and hope Nottinghamshire acquire less than 11 points in their own final match against Warwickshire at Trent Bridge.

The 26-year-old was registered for the final part of the County Championship season in early September. He has been added to the squad to face Hampshire this week, having not been required to play in the two home games at the Kia Oval against Warwickshire and Nottinghamshire.

Chahar, a leg-spinner, has regularly featured for Rajasthan in the Ranji Trophy and has represented India seven times in white-ball cricket. Chahar has notched 87 wickets in 24 first-class matches at an average of 26.12, with best match figures of 9/148.

His journey in the cash-rich Indian Premier League (IPL) started at Rising Pune Supergiants, but it was at the Mumbai Indians where his career took off to a new level. He was a key part of the bigwigs squad that won the 2019 and 2020 IPL tournaments. He was later acquired by the Punjab Kings in 2022 and spent the last season with the Sunrisers Hyderabad.

"I'm excited to join Surrey for this week's match. I'm coming here to have an impact and help the team in their final match of the season," Chahar said in a statement released by Surrey.

His call-up to the team comes in the aftermath of Surrey losing its twin spinners, Will Jacks and Cam Steel, to injury. Alec Stewart, the club's high-performance advisor, said, "Adding Rahul to the squad gives us another spin option at the Utilita Bowl.

We always knew that we would be missing players for the final period of the season, and we tried to plan accordingly, given the potential surfaces and the opposition we're playing."

"We had originally earmarked Sai Kishore to return for the latter stages of the season, but he unfortunately has a finger injury resulting in an operation, which has meant he was unavailable," he concluded. (ANI)

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