Not many had given Varun Aaron much of a chance before Thursday’s match against Kolkata Knight Riders at the Eden.

In just his second appearance for Rajasthan Royals this season, he rocked the Knight Riders top order with disciplined bowling. The Jharkhand pacer’s effort (4-1-20-2) also earned him the Man-of-the-Match award.

He attributed his improvement as a bowler to his County stint this year where he played a few matches for Leicestershire. He incidentally got both his wickets through inswinging deliveries on Thursday, something he attributed to his playing County cricket.

“I used to bowl a lot of outswing earlier. Playing County cricket helped me develop my inswinging deliveries which come in handy in these sorts of conditions,” said Aaron. The 29-year-old was all praise for the Eden wicket. “The Eden wicket is definitely good. It has something in it for the batsmen and bowlers.

“I was looking forward to playing here because of more bounce in the wicket. I knew seam movement would be available if I kept the ball up and that’s what happened,” he said.

He said he didn’t play more matches this season because the team management had a different combination in mind. Despite not getting many chances, he always believed in his abilities.

“I always believe in myself. I felt that the one over I bowled in the previous game, I didn’t do too much wrong in that. I was looking forward to make the most of my opportunity when I got a chance. I’m feeling good. All I want to do is play for the country again and win matches.”

Aaron said the Royals always believed that they could win the match and never gave up. “Right from the start, we believed that we could win. No match is over till the last ball.

“Even when we lost wickets, we firmly believed that we could win. Moreover, Jofra Archer is good with the bat, so we always had a chance. At no point did we think that the match was over,” said Aaron.