Minutes after the national selectors ignored Varun Chakravarthy for the Sri Lanka tour in July, Kolkata Knight Riders’ mystery leg spinner took to social media to vent his anger and frustration.
‘I wish I had a PR agency !!!!!!” he wrote on Instagram.
While it did take some by surprise, considering his cool demeanour, Varun had a point in expressing his ire.
It’s been a year of great success for Varun. His team, Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), won IPL 2024 in May. He finished IPL 2024 as the team’s highest wicket-taker, and second-highest overall, with 21 wickets from 14 innings.
In August, his team Dindigul Dragons won the Tamil Nadu Premier League (TNPL). With Ravichandran Ashwin as captain, Varun got 2/26 in the final and was the joint-highest wicket-taker with Sandeep Warrier at 12 wickets apiece.
On Sunday, it was a “rebirth” for Varun in Gwalior during India’s crushing seven-wicket win in the first T20I. He was back playing for India after nearly three years and his 3/31 stifled Bangladesh.
“After IPL, I played a few tournaments and one of those was the TNPL. It’s a very good tournament, and high standard also,” Varun said.
“That’s a place where I worked a lot, with Ash bhai (Ashwin). We won the competition also, and that gave me confidence because it was good preparation for me for this series.
“I just want to stick to the process because that’s what I have been following in the IPL also. So I don’t want to go over and beyond what’s there right now. I just want to stay in the present. That’s why I don’t want to think too much or express too much.
“I used to be a side-spin bowler, but right now, I have completely shifted to being an over-spin bowler,” Varun said after the first T20I.
“It’s a minute technical aspect of spin bowling, but it took me more than two years. I gradually tested it in TNPL and IPL. While the mental aspect also had to be worked on, the major chunk of the effort I put in was on my technical side.”
The number one thing for a spinner is to have revolutions on the ball. There aretwo types when it comes to imparting spin: over-spin and side-spin.
A side-spinning delivery will only break and take a deviation sideways. An overspun delivery will spin, bounce and then turn in or away sharply.
“After three long years, it was definitely emotional for me,” he said on Jio Cinema. “It feels nice to be back in the Blues, it feels like a rebirth.”
While Varun has felt the pressure of not being part of the India squad, he decided to make use of playing in the domestic circuit.
“Whenever there was a squad that was announced, I used to feel like, ‘why is my name not there?’ and I used to keep thinking about that. So that kind of brought the motivation within me that I should not leave this.
“I should go all out and make a comeback, so I started playing a lot of domestic games and giving importance to it. That kind of helped me.”
The support and camaraderie from his teammates, even the ones he was directly competing with, has helped him immensely.
“There is good competition and there is good camaraderie also,” Varun said. “And the person who was cheering me was Ravi Bishnoi... It’s actually good to have such competition so that people will keep pushing each other.
“Someone will be better than others at one pointof time and he will definitely get the Cup for India, sothat competition is verymuch required.”
