The batting unit’s abject failure may have been the prime reason for India’s shock 0-2 defeat to Ireland, but skipper Shreyas Iyer would be somewhat relieved to find some bowling reinforcement in the familiar form of Varun Chakaravarthy ahead of the first of five T20Is against England starting Wednesday at Chester-le-Street.
Back in 2024 when Shreyas led Kolkata Knight Riders to the IPL title, it was Varun who was his go-to-man with the ball even ahead of Sunil Narine. As his captaincy tenure with India began with two losses at Belfast last week, Shreyas found himself short of answers in the middle overs, when the hosts repeatedly ran away with the game.
With India’s white-ball priorities pointing towards next year’s 50-over World Cup in southern Africa, they may have to play T20s without their ultimate X-factor Jasprit Bumrah. He was the cheat code for Rohit Sharma and Suryakumar Yadav to dial at the first sign of concern.
But Shreyas’s predecessors had also been fortunate in another aspect – the presence of X-factors in the spin department with Varun and Kuldeep Yadav often pairing a formidable pair.
Chakaravarthy was Iyer’s go-to man when the pair won the 2024 IPL while playing for KKR. (BCCI Photo)
While the left-arm wrist spinner was sparsely used because of team combination factors, the absence of both was felt in Ireland. Washington Sundar was trusted for just one over and since the start of this year, he has bowled his full quota only twice – against South Africa and the Netherlands at the T20 World Cup. One has to go back to Pallekele in 2024 to find another instance of Washington finishing his quota. If one takes those three games out, he has sent down 10.2 overs in 10 matches. The tall off-spinner has seven wickets, but in a format where match-ups dictate the minds of captains, he has been used sparingly.
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That India chose to drop Kuldeep at the start of a new T20I cycle wasn’t a surprise. The left-arm wrist-spinner didn’t make life easy for himself in the IPL, and despite Varun having a lean patch during the T20 World Cup, in terms of economy rate, India have chosen to retain him as the lone X-factor bowling option.
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It is a new role for him, where for the first time, batsmen will come prepared to play him out safely with minimal risk as against taking him on. Play him safe and England’s explosive batting unit can feast on the rest in mostly batting-friendly conditions. Given how batsmen from both the sides thrive on flat decks, chances of any sporting surface rolled out seem remote with high totals expected across all five venues, which have short boundaries.
Rejuvenated
After playing the IPL with a fractured toe towards the end, the 34-year-old Varun took a short break, travelling to Sri Lanka with a couple of his teammates from Tamil Nadu. Since his return, he has been training extensively at the BCCI’s Centre of Excellence (CoE), trying to get his rhythm back. When batsmen were taking him apart in the T20 World Cup, there were concerns if his mystery had been decoded and whether he had to go back to side-spin. But the time off has allowed introspection and unlike 2021, he hasn’t found reasons to change and neither has there been self-doubt.
“Honestly, he was not worried like last time,” Varun’s mentor AC Pratheepan, with whom he has been training, tells The Indian Express. “The data also showed he was bowling in the right areas – 4-6m length – and if the batsmen were still hitting him, you got to give it to them. Of course, it doesn’t mean all was well, but it didn’t need substantial changes. Just getting back to basics and rhythm was the priority. Since he was at CoE, he had a good volume of bowling, which is good because that’s how you get rhythm.”
The rhythm that Pratheepan refers to covers all bases in Varun’s bowling – run-up, release, trajectory, point of release. Before the spinner left for England, they had a session just to check if Varun ticked all the boxes.
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“For us, rhythm means hitting the right lengths organically without worrying about release point, arm speed, angle etc. When you are in rhythm, all of it will happen organically. So that was the focus. It started first by bowling just at the stumps and then at the batsmen. Spot-bowling alone isn’t enough. You need to challenge yourself to see where you stand,” Pratheepan says.
A fit and firing Varun will be a welcome addition for Shreyas in the middle overs. Against Ireland, after Arshdeep Singh and Harshit Rana provided breakthroughs in the Powerplay, India were flat with Axar Patel not able to extract much. In case, India are wary of playing Varun immediately, the other option is leg-spinner Ravi Bishnoi, who has evolved a lot in the format. Despite pressing hard for a spot in the T20 World Cup squad, he missed out narrowly, and then had a mixed IPL with Rajasthan Royals. But, there is enough for India to invest in him. With his quick arm speed and ability to skid the ball, Bishnoi has the ability to take the pitch out of the equation, which the think tank prefers in the format.
In a series played on flat batting decks, it will all come down to which attack can keep it simple and effective.
