e-Paper
A couple of years away from cricket helped Varun Chakravarthy refresh his bowling, develop a mystery spin variety and return to the sport with a bang.
The architect from Tamil Nadu is having a wonderful time at the ongoing Indian Premie league (IPL) in the United Arab Emitrates.
The Kolkata Knight Riders leg-spinner has 13 wickets from 11 matches and on Saturday registered a five-wicket haul against Delhi Capitals. His impressive performances have earned him a place in the India Twenty20 International squad for the upcoming series against Australia.
"Chakravarthy was initially playing first division in Chennai and also studying architecture engineering," said Rohit Damodaran, his former captain at Tamil Nadu Premier League (TNPL) side Madurai Panthers. "He then took three years off and in that period he developed this mystery variety (of spin) while he played fourth division league in Chennai.
"He used to practise the mystery ball with a tennis ball. He has three or four variations of it and slowly got it going with the cricket ball."
Chakravarthy can bowl the carrom ball which goes away from the batsman. He also has another carrom ball that skids on to the pads.
Then there is the normal off-spin and googly. Damodaran said the carrom ball and googly bowled by Chakravarthy are similar.
"The release is the same, hence it is difficult for the batsman to pick," said Damodaran, who was impressed by Chakravarthy's efforts at the nets when the bowler made a "mockery" of him and other senior batsmen.
Chakravarthy, 29, also went to the Chennai Super Kings practice sessions and bowled to former India captain M.S. Dhoni, who was impressed by his talents.
CSK were desperate to get Chakravarthy for the 2019 IPL season. But Kings XI Punjab outbid CSK and other teams to pick him for Rs8.4 crore.
Chakravarthy, who hails from Thanjavur, was bought by Kolkata Knight Riders for Rs4 crore this season.
On Oct 7, Chakravarthy showed he has class when he bowled Dhoni at a crucial juncture - when the CSK skipper was looking to take the team to victory. That wicket brought KKR back into the game and they defeated CSK by 10 runs.
Damodaran said he used Chakravarthy as a containing bowler in 2018 when the Panthers won the TNPL title. "There were better performers in our run to the title," said Damodaran. "But in terms of economy and number of dot balls, Varun was the No. 1. He brought in a lot of dimension to my team. Before the tournament, he told me: 'You can use me whichever way the team wants.'
"Everyone knew that he can bowl mystery spin. So whenever he would come on to bowl, the batsmen would try to play carefully without getting out.
"That meant he would end up bowling three or four dot balls and end up conceding a maximum of four runs.
"Four overs, 16 runs is what he usually gives. In the final, he conceded just 10 runs. So, with him around, I am saving about 20 runs in a T20 game in comparison to what others would give. That ends up as a big margin."
Last Saturday, KKR used Chakravarthy as a wicket-taker. By the time he was brought in, the task for Delhi Capitals was arduous. They needed 119 runs from nine overs.
The DC batsmen, in their quest of quick runs, tried to hit Chakravarthy out of the park and ended up handing him five wickets.
Indo-Asian News Service
