Australia’s iconic leg-spinner Shane Warne has helped many budding spinners in his country as well as the rest of the world. However, he passed away in the year 2022. Veteran Indian spinner Piyush Chawla recently recalled a conversation with the late legend Shane Warne, which has had a huge impact on his career.

Talking about Piyush Chawla, he represented Kings XI Punjab (now Punjab Kings) in the first edition of the IPL in the year 2008, when he was just 19 years old. The T20 format was new in India at that time, and like many others, Chawla was also trying to understand the format and gameplay of T20 cricket.

He made his T20 debut for Uttar Pradesh in 2007, where he registered impressive figures of 3-23. However, he struggled in the big leagues early in his career, conceding 46 runs in three overs in his first two Indian Premier League (IPL) matches against Chennai Super Kings (CSK) and Rajasthan Royals (RR).

Piyush Chawla made this statement while speaking on 2 Sloggers Podcast

“Our first match was against CSK and they had scored 230+ runs. I bowled one over and gave away 20 runs. So I just got one over. I thought ‘no problem. What’s done is done’. After that we reached Jaipur for the second match against Rajasthan Royals. We batted first and I scored 24 runs off 11-12 balls. When I came to bowl, I gave away 30 runs in 2 overs. After that I went to my room and thought ‘this T20 cricket is not my cup of tea’.”

He further said, “After the match, Yuvraj came and introduced me to the great Shane Warne. I went to his room and started talking. I was not able to speak English and he was not able to understand much. But whatever little I understood, he understood. After 40 minutes I came out of his room and I am not joking, I felt that there is no bowler better than me. He told me a lot of things and explained me small things about cricket.”

Piyush Chawla registered figures of 2- 16 in the next match against Mumbai Indians

Inspired by Shane Warne’s words, Chawla justified the faith the team had shown in him. He picked up two wickets for just 16 runs in Kings XI Punjab’s stunning win over Mumbai Indians (MI) in Mohali. After this, Chawla never looked back and became one of the highest wicket-takers in IPL history.