Varun Chakravarthy hopes to be third time lucky

How the former architect won his fitness battles to keep his dream of playing for the Indian cricket team alive

Twice having to drop out for not meeting the fitness standards for the Indian cricket team, spinner Varun Chakravarthy knew exactly what he needed to get right to make the Indian squad for the tour of Sri Lanka starting July 13.

Varun Chakravarthy (second from right) has been included in the Indian team for the tour of Sri Lanka in July 13. (IPL)

Ideally, this should have been his third international outing. Impressed with his bag of tricks in the UAE IPL, the selectors had chosen him for the white-ball tour to Australia last year, only to realize that his injured shoulder would not allow him to throw from the deep. The shoulder was given time to heal and Chakravarthy was named again in the squad when England came visiting earlier this year. But the Tamil Nadu cricketer could not cross the hurdle of the fitness test that’s a prerequisite for India selection. That he has been given yet another chance shows just how much the selectors value his unique set of skills. The leg spinner, who swears by his seven variations has bamboozled some of the world’s finest batsmen in the IPL.

“The setbacks and his entire journey has made Varun mentally stronger,” said Omkar Salvi, Assistant bowling coach at Kolkata Knight Riders. Salvi, along with the rest of KKR support staff, worked behind the scenes to keep Chakravarthy’s India dreams on track. “Varun didn’t have a strong strength and conditioning background supporting him unlike others who came through the age group ranks. Besides being an architect for five years, he didn’t find much time for strength and conditioning. So, when he first came in, he was not strong in on-field movements,” Kamlesh Jain, KKR’s physio recalls of the Tamil Nadu premier league find. “It was a challenge to get him on the park, but we knew we had to because of his special talent with the ball.”

The shoulder problem that prevented Chakravarthy from taking the flight to Australia dates back to an injury he suffered while throwing during one of his first division games in Chennai. The shoulder was also responsible for Chakravarthy’s poor outing for Punjab Kings in IPL 2019 where he ended up playing just one match. Punjab, who had broken their bank at the auction to obtain his services for R 8.4 crores, released him next season and KKR snapped him up for half the prize.

“Last year, the pandemic became a problem. For six months, the place where he lived in Chennai was in complete lockdown. He did not have access to the gym and could not do aggressive rehab. We stayed in touch with him…whatever he could do indoors,” said physio Jain. “Earlier, we had covered a lot of ground at the KKR academy.”

KKR runs a satellite academy, and Savi, assistant coach Abhishek Nayyar and Jain and his fitness team are known to travel to players’ hometowns to work with them if necessary.

“In Varun’s case, we trained at Thane’s Dadoji Konddev stadium and at Parsee Gymkhana in South Mumbai. One has to look at the player’s past history and frame curated programmes. Most of the progress is made in the off-season,” said Salvi.

With the lockdown undoing a lot of the hard work, Chakravarthy again went through the paces in what became a match fitness crash-course in the 3-week camp at UAE before IPL 2020. By the time that tournament was over, he had bamboozled MS Dhoni, grabbed a 5-wicket haul against Ricky Ponting’s Delhi and finished with 17 wickets from 13 matches at an average just a shade under 21.

Earlier this year, in the unfinished IPL, Chakravarthy got the prized wicket of Virat Kohli.

These high-profile dismissals have powered Chakravarthy’s self-belief. But he wouldn’t have gotten there without the strengthened shoulder and countless sweat-hours in the gym. “We at KKR have been in constant touch with the National Cricket Academy where he spent three months after the last IPL. Between us, we have tried to bring him to much better strength levels. In the last IPL, his shoulder was absolutely fine. He just has to maintain the routines now. He has lost a lot of weight too,” Jain said.

Depending on what he achieves in Sri Lanka, a World Cup appearance may become a reality for Chakravarthy, who had given up on cricket less than a decade back.