Yuzvendra Chahal, who bowled a match-winning effort against the West Indies in the opening ODI, said on Sunday that he watched each of his ODI games in South Africa three or four times to learn from his faults and spoke with his skipper and bowling coach to enhance his bowling.
India beat the West Indies by six wickets in the series opener at the Narendra Modi Stadium on Sunday, with to Yuzvendra Chahal's 4/49, Washington Sundar's 3/30, and captain Rohit Sharma's fast 60.
This provided some help to spinners, as Chahal and Sundar both made good advantage of the situation, taking seven wickets between them to help the Indians bowl out the West Indies for 176.
Due to Covid, off-spinner Sundar missed the South Africa ODI series, while leg-spinner Chahal picked up only two wickets in three white-ball matches during the tour of South Africa, as India failed to take important wickets in the middle-overs.
He showed signs of recovering to form in the first ODI against the West Indies, taking four wickets.
"When I returned from South Africa, I went through each of my games three or four times to see what I missed. After returning, I spoke with Rohit bhaiyya as well as our bowling coach, Paras Mhambrey sir. I worked on the areas where I thought I was lacking, "In his post-match presentation, Chahal said.
In his 60th match for India, the 31-year-old also set a record of 100 wickets in ODI cricket during the first match. With this, he overcame his spin partner Kuldeep Yadav as the second-fastest Indian spinner to achieve the record, as the left-arm spinner took 58 matches to collect 100 ODI wickets.
After watching the ball turn on the Ahmedabad surface, Chahal said he changed his line and lengths.
"With his two wickets, Softly built up the pressure. I knew the ball was spinning on this field when I watched his spell, so I could fly it a little. Even if you flight the ball, hitting the ball down the ground is difficult on this kind of pitches. I spoke to Rohit Bhai and Virat bhaiyya and realized how important pace is on this wicket "He said.