Yuzvendra Chahal to face Viswanathan Anand in charity chess match

We all know how good Yuzvendra Chahal is in cricket but do you know that he is a champion in Chess as well? Chahal has participated in several national competitions and even represented India in World Youth Chess Championship.

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He will now get an opportunity to test his skills against the former World Champion Viswanathan Anand. The Indian Grandmaster will play a series of exhibition matches against celebrities on June 13 to raise funds for COVID -19 relief work in India. Apart from Chahal, Anand will also face Ritiesh Deshmukh, Aamir Khan, Arijit Singh, Ananya Birla and Manu Kumar Jain.

Chahal confirmed the news through his official Instagram account. The leg spinner shared a story posted by his wife Dhanashree Verma, where she updated her fans about the development. Meanwhile, Viswanathan Anand also took to Twitter and posted a video to break the news.

Looking forward to playing some exciting chess with:

Aamir Khan@riteishd@NGEMovies@arijitsingh@ananya_birla@nikhilkamathcio@manukumarjain@yuzi_chahal@KicchaSudeep



See you all this Sunday, June 13th at 5 pm to #CheckmateCovid with @AkshayaPatra, @chesscom_in & @Prachura1 pic.twitter.com/wSEZuckFB0

— Viswanathan Anand (@vishy64theking) June 12, 2021

Chahal will be in action next month when India take on Sri Lanka in three ODIs and as many T20Is. Chahal was named in the 20 man squad announced for the tour. The squad, led by Shikhar Dhawan and coached by Rahul Dravid, also features six uncapped players, Devdutt Padikkal, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Krishnappa Gowtham, Chetan Sakariya, Varun Chakravarthy, and Nitish Rana.

The ODIs will take place on July 13, 16 and 18 while the T20Is will be played on July 21, 23 and 25. The series will be a great opportunity for Chahal and Kuldeep Yadav to make a case for themselves for a place in the Indian squad for the World T20. Notably, Virat Kohli and other senior members of the team are not part of the squad as they are in England gearing up for the final of the World Test Championship and the following five match Test series against England.