Varun Chakravarthy's return to the Indian team has been a blockbuster one. From being away from the Indian team for about three years, the mystery spinner has picked 13 wickets in six T20Is since his return.
Chakravarthy outsmarted the South African batters in the second T20I in Gqeberha and picked up a five-wicket haul with his googlies doing the trick. While the Indian team ended on the losing end, Chakravarthy's performance has sent him into the limelight once again.
After registering his best T20 figures of 5/17, the spinner opened up on the three-year gap of his absence from the Indian team. "I had to go to the drawing board and check out all my videos. I figured out that I was bowling side spin and it was not working out in the higher levels," he told Jiocinema.
"I had to change everything about my bowling. It took me two years and I started bowling in the local leagues and IPL also. It worked there and I have started bowling it in the international stage and it’s working out for me," he said.
The Kolkata Knight Riders spinner also revealed how he worked on bowling overspin from the side spin he used to bowl earlier. The side spin creates more revolutions and the ball drifts sideways, while the overspin has a sharp bounce and turn.
"The overspin I bowl has more bite from the pitch and hopefully I can keep doing that and hopefully I can keep contributing for the country," he said.
Chakravarthy was part of the Indian T20 World Cup 2021 team that suffered a group-stage exit. However, the KKR spinner went wicketless in the three matches he played in the tournament. Chakravarthy bounced back in IPL when he picked 20 wickets before taking 21 in the 2024 season.
"Definitely, the last three years were a little tough. The only thing I could do was play lots of cricket. And I started playing a lot in the domestic league (TNPL) in India. And that definitely helped me understand my game better. And that's what helped me," the spinner said.
The 33-year-old spinner was part of KKR's IPL 2024 winning squad. The current India head coach Gautam Gambhir coached the KKR team. He credited Gambhir for giving the role clarity. "Yes, we played the Bangladesh tour and he was coaching the team. And definitely, we spoke a lot and he gave me a lot of role clarity.
He told me, that even if you go for 30-40 runs, it doesn't matter. All you have to look is to pick wickets. So that's your role in the team. The clarity which they gave definitely helped me," he said.
