Smriti Mandhana makes her Chahal TV debut; names her inspiration - Kohli or Tendulkar?

Yuzvendra Chahal is quickly endearing himself to the mainstream media and this burst of popularity is not for his bowling, but for his hosting prowess on BCCI website exclusive show called Chahal TV.

Chahal started this humorous talk show during India's ODI series against Australia with its first guest being India's limited-overs vice-captain Rohit Sharma. Since then, the show has gone from strength to strength featuring the likes of Indian skipper Virat Kohli, Chahal's spin twin Kuldeep Yadav and even the Bharat Army which an Indian team fan club.

Chahal TV has broken quite a few boundaries by featuring the backroom staff in one of its episodes and the latest episode of the light-hearted show gave fans a crossover they were desperately wanting.

Smriti Mandhana, the ICC Cricketer of the Year and number 1 batsman of the women's game joined Chahal ahead of India's first T20I match against New Zealand. Here, she was asked by Chahal who her batting inspiration was and her reply was in perfect coherence with the show's format.

"Yes. Yes. (You are my inspiration). After watching you bat in the 4^th ODI, I got immensely inspired. Your batting inspired me to improve and develop my game – hence you are an inspiration for every batter," Mandhana chuckled along with Chahal throughout her reply.

Chahal nodded in approval lauding Mandhana's choice of batter to take inspiration from.

The left-hand batter has been in scintillating form in the women's game and like Virat Kohli of the men's game, she has earned superstar reputation. Mandhana's achievements in 2018 were similar to Kohli as both of them had been awarded the ICC Cricketers of the Year in their respective fields. They are also the number 1 ranked batters in the world.

Apart from these, the two players also share the same jersey number – 18. Asked about that she said that she wanted the number 7 initially but had to settle for 18 as someone else was already using that kit number.

"Initially I wanted the number 7 because my roll number in school was 7 but that already belonged to someone else. So our BCCI manager asked me to take number 18 as my birthday is on July 18. I didn't know then that Virat bhaiya had the same number."

Talking about winning the ICC award, she said she was very proud as she was very young when Jhulan Goswami won the same honour.

"I felt really nice to win the award because when Jhulu Di (Jhulan Goswami) won it I was very young and I read about it in the papers. So yes, it felt good," said the 22-year-old.

Mandhana concluded the show by promoting Chahal TV and it is safe to say that Chahal will do well in an alternate profession.