Mystery spinner Varun making the most of a shot at redemption

For three years, Varun Chakravarthy was overcome by a burning desire. Having flirted with international cricket, and not very successfully at that, the architect from Chennai was desperate for a second chance, for another opportunity to showcase his wares to a larger audience.

A late entrant to competitive cricket, Varun was 27 when he first played for Tamil Nadu, in the 50-over Vijay Hazare Trophy in September 2018. he broke into the Indian Twenty20 International team more than two and a half years later, during a tour of Sri Lanka in July 2021. That was on the back of a terrific first season in IPL 2020 for Kolkata Knight Riders, when he picked up 17 wickets in 13 games, at an impressive economy of 6.84 runs per over.

He is officially listed as a leg-break/googly bowler with a greater preference for the latter, but he had a terrific bag of tricks that contributed to the bamboozlement of batters of all class. It was no surprise that the tag ‘mystery spinner’ was quickly affixed to him, a tag that was further embellished by 18 wickets for KKR in IPL 2021.

Varun didn’t have an outstanding tour of Sri Lanka, taking two wickets in 11.3 overs across three matches, but an economy rate of just over 5 and his pedigreed propensity to dismiss batters earned him a berth in the Indian squad for the T20 World Cup in the UAE in October-November 2021. Picked ahead of senior Tamil Nadu spinner R. Ashwin, he finished wicketless in both of India’s first two losses, to Pakistan and New Zealand respectively. By failing to bag a wicket against Scotland too, Varun finished the World Cup without any success at all. By then, he hadn’t taken a wicket in his last five T20Is, which ushered him out of the Indian team.

His travails spilled over to IPL 2022 when he had his worst season since his debut for Kings XI Punjab in 2019, 11 matches yielding a mere six scalps. To make matters worse, he went at 8.51 runs per over. Game over, the experts tut-tutted.

It could have been tempting for Varun to move on, to chuck it all away, because he was equipped for an alternative career, courtesy his engineering degree, and cricket wasn’t being particularly kind to him. But showing that he is made of sterner stuff, Varun went back to the drawing board, made a conscious decision to reinvent himself and returned a more dangerous, rounded and lethal version in IPL 2023.

The transformation

In that edition, he was a bowler transformed. The zip was back, the bite was cutting, success was immediate. He finished with 20 wickets for the season, then topped it up with 21 in IPL 2024, one of the key driving forces behind KKR’s charge to a third title, a decade after their second success in 2014. It helped that when KKR regained the title this summer, in the dugout as mentor of the team was former captain Gautam Gambhir. Within months of that triumph, Gambhir would take charge as head coach of the Indian team. Varun’s fortunes, shaped primarily by his lethal right arm, took a turn for the better.

Immediately after a 2-0 conquest of Bangladesh in the Test series, India were to play three T20Is against the same side, ahead of a three-match Test showdown against New Zealand. That was the cue for Varun to return to the national set-up. In his first appearance for the country in 35 months, after missing 86 T20Is, Varun snaffled three for 31 in Gwalior; in Delhi three nights later, he was even more impressive in taking two for 19 from his full quota. Welcome back, Varun Chakravarthy.

Almost a month later, as the Indian Test team was licking its wounds following the 0-3 home drubbing by New Zealand, V.V.S. Laxman flew out as head coach of the Suryakumar Yadav-led outfit for a four-match T20I series in South Africa. Varun was on that flight, of course, and extended his recent international success by finishing with three for 25 in his four overs in the opener in Durban to accelerate India’s victory.

The next game was even more productive from an individual standpoint, Varun firming up his return with five for 17 in Gqeberha. His personal delight was tempered by a disappointing three-wicket loss in a low-scoring game, but Varun could take pride in the fact that single-handedly, he had made India’s modest 124 for six appear a lot more formidable.

The process

So, what’s changed with Varun? How has he rediscovered himself? “I had to go to the drawing board and check out all my videos. I figured out that I was bowling sidespin and it was not working out in the higher levels,” Varun said in the immediacy of his fifer. “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.

“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.”

On Wednesday night, in India’s nervy 11-run win in Centurion in game three, Varun took serious tap, conceding 54 in his four overs. But the two wickets he snared, of Reeza Hendricks and skipper Aiden Markram, swelled his tally of scalps for the series to ten, making him the first Indian bowler to take at least ten wickets in a bilateral T20I faceoff.

Varun is 33 now and will be the first to admit that he isn’t the swiftest mover or the fittest soul in the Indian dugout. Much of that has to do with his late entry into the competitive sphere, but what he might lack in agility, he more than makes up for with skill. It has brought him this far; how much further remains to be seen.

At some stage in 2025, potentially immediately after the IPL in the summer, India’s focus will turn to the 2026 T20 World Cup, which they will co-host alongside Sri Lanka. As the defending champions playing on home turf, India will feel the heat. They will feel the need to assemble a crack outfit that can emulate Rohit Sharma’s Class of 2024. Whether Varun is part of that crack outfit, time, fitness and the thought process about seven months from now will decide.

Varun knows that if he keeps knocking batters over – sidespin, overspin or no spin – he will continue to feature seriously in all discussions surrounding team selection. Beyond that, things are out of his control. He can’t influence ideologies and philosophies of the decision-making group, though he will be heartened by the presence in that sphere of influence of Gambhir.

For India’s head coach, Varun isn’t a defensive, run-denying option but an attacking, wicket-taking resource. “He was coaching the team when we played against Bangladesh and we spoke a lot,” Varun revealed. “He gave me a lot of role clarity. He told, ‘Even if you go for 30-40 runs, it doesn’t matter. All you have to look is to pick wickets. That’s your role in the team’. The clarity which he gave definitely helped me.”

There is huge competition for places in the Indian T20I landscape, with multiple options abounding for every slot. Despite Ravindra Jadeja’s retirement from the 20-over game internationally, India have a wealth of spinners to choose from, ranging from Axar Patel and Kuldeep Yadav to Washington Sundar and Ravi Bishnoi, among others. This depth is great from an Indian standpoint because there is insurance against untimely injuries or inopportune poor form. It’s also wonderful for the individuals concerned if they choose to look at it from a positive perspective – nothing helps one keep raising the bar than healthy competition, which is precisely what’s in abundance in Indian cricket at the moment across formats, the New Zealand crash-and-burn notwithstanding.

Varun’s evolution as a cricketer has also triggered a slight change in outward persona. In the past, he didn’t celebrate taking wickets with enthusiasm or exuberance and a world that places so much emphasis on ‘body language’ was quick to flood social media with misplaced negative opinions. It’s unlikely that Varun is reacting to that, but he is displaying greater emotion on the cricket field than ever before. Whether it’s good or not is besides the point; it’s just different, like a lot of things Varun are these days.

There aren’t any immediate T20I games for India after Friday’s final fixture against the Proteas in Johannesburg. But not long from now, the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy inter-state T20 tournament will get underway, which in a way will be the perfect preparation for a short series against England in January-February, ahead of the 50-over Champions Trophy. Unless the dynamic changes considerably in the next couple of months, Varun will be out in the middle trying to outfox and outwit the Englishmen as he tries to continue to climb up the list of ‘must haves’ within the team’s think-tank.

Ashwin is the clear leader in the art of redefining oneself and adding to their repertoire, but he has also spawned a little spinning revolution in Chennai with Washington and Varun taking a cue from his playbook and evolving and growing as wicket-takers in their own right. Now, how pleasing that must be for the slick off-spinner.