CHENNAI: Once Jasprit Bumrah was ruled out of the Champions Trophy, India were left without an X-factor in the bowling line-up.
It was at this point that the team management and selection committee pulled a rabbit out of the hat and included mystery spinner Varun Chakravarthy as the fifth tweaker in the 15-member squad. The planning was meticulous too. He was not played in the games against Bangladesh and Pakistan, who might have read him slightly better, and was unleashed against New Zealand in the third round-robin match.
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The 33-year-old had an immediate impact, taking five wickets against a team that had played finger spinners so well on more difficult pitches in a Test series in India a few months ago. It was followed up by crucial strikes – including that of Travis Head – against Australia in the semis and during the final. The fear-factor that Varun generated went a long way in Indian spinners maintaining a stranglehold over the Kiwis.
Varun became captain Rohit Sharma’s go-to bowler in crunch moments of the title-winning campaign. Moments before lifting the silverware, Rohit lauded the tweaker for bringing “something different” to the table. Varun’s significant contributions – he finished as India’s joint-highest wicket-taker with nine scalps, although he featured in only three games – also meant that the Gautam Gambhir-led coaching group had the luxury of playing with only two pacers on pitches which had nothing in them for the quicker bowlers.
While the spinner is the toast of the country at the moment, he was nowhere close to selection in the 50-over format not too long ago. But his performances in the T20Is in South Africa brought him back into the reckoning for ODIs.
A national selector was sent to the venues where Tamil Nadu were playing their Vijay Hazare Trophy matches, just to monitor him. Varun did not disappoint, taking 18 wickets, and the decision was made: “If not Bumrah, it is Varun.”
AC Prathiban, a former Tamil Nadu spinner who is Varun’s personal coach, feels it is the “mental toughness” and “meticulous planning” that have made the rise possible.
“Mentality-wise, Varun is at a different level; he has been working a lot on it. He may have shied away from a few things earlier, but he is ready to face those now. He has shown a lot of courage,” Prathiban told TOI.
“The last time Varun went to Dubai, the situation was totally different. Travelling to Dubai in itself could have been a nightmare, considering what happened (he had ordinary outings in the 2021 T20 World Cup). But he showed a lot of character to get into the team and win the title. Abhishek Nayar (current national team assistant coach) has played a huge part in the process, by being with him at Kolkata Knight Riders and the India team,” Prathiban added.
Thanks to Varun’s extensive preparation in the lead-up to the CT, he had not just ‘plan A’ to outwit opposition batters. Instead of focussing on the individual, the slow bowler, who grouped batters based on how they approach the ball, looked at the category in which the player fell into. “Every day when he wakes up, Varun thinks about something new that he can do with his bowling. He spends a lot of time to prepare,” said Prathiban.
“For different kinds of batters, his sequence of deliveries will vary. We planned the kind of deliveries Varun should bowl to every set of batters. If he is successful, what to do next… if there is a boundary, how is he going to respond… if he is looking for a wicket, what are the balls that he is going to bowl in the build-up. It works that way,” added Prathiban, who was in constant touch with the spinner during the CT.
The volume of matches which Varun played over the last six months ensured that there was no break in momentum. “Varun’s body had to take a lot of load. He has hardly had proper rest since last year’s IPL. To remain a mystery bowler, he needs to train a lot and execute the plans well time and again. Only in a competitive game will he get to find whether he is able to execute the plans well. Since he managed to execute consistently in those matches, things became a lot easier for him in the CT,” explained Prathiban.