Fit to fight: Varun Chakaravarthy solves the mystery

His injury history often meant that he couldn’t get himself to showcase this wide range but this IPL season has a different feel to it

For quite some time, the biggest mystery about Varun Chakaravarthy seemed to be his fitness status rather than anything he delivered with the ball in hand. The 31-year-old spinner, who took to professional cricket only in his mid-20s, has a range of deliveries — off break, leg break, googly and the carrom ball to name a few — in his repertoire, but his injury history often meant that he couldn’t get himself to showcase this wide range.

Kolkata Knight Riders bowler Varun Chakaravarthy celebrates with teammates (PTI)

In 2020, for instance, he was picked in India’s T20I squad for the tour of Australia despite undergoing rehab for a chronic shoulder injury that hampered his ability to throw. He was eventually withdrawn from the squad and replaced by left-arm seamer T Natarajan. A few months later, he was selected for a T20I series versus England but could again take no part after failing a fitness test.

It all perhaps added up to the Indian selectors losing patience with the mystery spinner after the 2021 T20 World Cup in United Arab Emirates (UAE), where he had an economy of 6.45 after 11 overs in three matches but failed to pick up a wicket. Shunned after his six T20I appearances for India, Chakaravarthy went on to have his worst IPL season for Kolkata Knight Riders in 2022. His 11 matches for KKR yielded only six wickets at an economy of 8.51. He was even dropped from the team for three games as batters seemed to have a full measure of his variations and unusually fuller lengths. His displays were in sharp contrast to his best season in 2021, when he finished among the top-10 wicket-takers with 18 scalps at an economy of 6.58 runs per over.

Many may have written him off after the 2022 edition, but Varun, a qualified architect, is carving an excellent comeback this season. He has already taken nine wickets — three more than last year — in six matches at an economy of 7.52, numbers which suggest he is KKR’s most important bowler this season. Sunil Narine, the only competitor for that mantle, has taken only six wickets so far and been more expensive as an economy rate of 8.43 illustrates.

There was a stark difference in their output at the Ferozeshah Kotla ground on Thursday. While Narine conceded 36 runs in four overs without taking a wicket, which proved costly in a low-scoring game, Chakaravarthy returned figures of 4-1-16-2. While Prithvi Shaw paid the price for cutting a ball that was too close to his body, David Warner was trapped leg-before after attempting a reverse sweep to a ball that was straight and a tad fuller than he anticipated. What should have been a straightforward chase for Delhi was anything but that as a result.

“Varun showed tonight exactly why he is one of the best spinners in IPL,” KKR opener Jason Roy said of his teammate on Thursday. “He brought us close to winning a game from nowhere. That’s the sort of star he is. He is very clever about his bowling, tactically he’s very good. Fortunately, I haven't got to face him too much in the nets.”

In the over that Chakaravarthy dismissed Warner, he bowled five dot balls to Axar Patel. Axar’s misery against Chakaravarthy continued in the 18th over of the Delhi innings when he appeared clueless to which way the ball was turning. This is despite Axar being Delhi’s second-highest run-getter this season and India’s most-improved batter in recent months. Lalit Yadav was equally lost, charging down the track in the hope of making contact with the ball only for Litton Das to miss a stumping.

“A lot of guys have faced him before. A lot of guys have seen a lot of footage,” Warner said after the match. “For me, it didn’t look like a lot of the guys were picking him. They were trying to play off the back foot and off the wicket. One of your responsibilities as a batter is to have a look at what deliveries he is bowling. If some batters are not picking him, they have to go back to the analyst and study harder.”

Chakaravarthy will relish Warner’s reading that many batters weren’t able to pick him. Like all mystery spinners, he is fond of talking up the different deliveries at his disposal. But his performances this season reinforce a fundamental aspect: it’s when he gets his basics right that he is most effective. It is why mystery spinners who rely purely on the element of surprise fade away after a season or two.

From what we have seen this season, Chakaravarthy will be glad he doesn’t belong to that bracket.