Varun Chakravarthy - The Mystery is Still There!

image-lgys9cfcChakravarthy bagged 3/27 vs RCB on Wednesday (AP Photo)

Of all the things that Varun Chakravarthy can do with a cricket ball, and we know it quite well that he can spin it with a hint of speed making batters uncomfortable, ending up wicketless isn’t one of his specialities. 

It’s just not his thing. 

We learnt it rather avidly just a few hours back in the game against the RCB though Bangalore learned the lesson rather harshly. 

Thus far, in the 2023 edition of the IPL, the wily right-arm leg-spinner has ended wicketless in just 1 game of the 8 he’s played. 

But his most recent one, brought the house down on Bangalore. 

But how did it all pan out for KKR’s gifted spinner the previous evening, one among the many in a long list of rank turners?

Glenn Maxwell had welcomed Chakravarthy by sending just the second delivery he faced to the deep square leg boundary.

In so doing, the Big Show announced his intentions that he wasn’t going to fool around. 

But on the very next ball, it was the classic case of you-hit-me-I-hit-you-back. On a flighted delivery pitched around the off stump, all that Maxwell could do was offer catching practice to mid-off. 

With the in-form Faf du Plessis already back in the dugout and now with Maxwell, amongst the biggest strikers of the ball having been sent back, Varun Chakravarthy had just broken the back of RCB’s middle order. 

Though, from there on in, it wasn’t all about the Kolkata Knight Riders as the RCB began to make some serious strides towards the serious total they were after; at one point, it did seem as though the Kohli and Lomror stand would take the game away from the Nitish Rana-led side.

They’d clinch sixteen runs from the tenth over and the chase was on with Kohli going well at the other end.

Moreover, having been 58-3, the Royal Challengers Bangalore would now lose another wicket only at the score of 113. 

Just when his KKR outfit so desperately searched a wicket to somehow find a way to beat the burgeoning Kohli-Lomror stand, Varun Chakravarthy provided the breakthrough. 

Having been hit by the dangerous left hander for a towering six in the twelfth over, Chakravarthy, surprisingly unafraid to toss it up, found his fielder deployed at the square leg boundary in business; Lomror had skied one too high for his liking, eventually strolling back to the pavilion. 

But while Varun Chakravarthy celebrated with his mates, Virat Kohli was left gutted at the other end. 

Though not long after Virat Kohli was sent packing by Andre Russell, the West Indian making up for his failure with the bat by grabbing the biggest wicket of them all, it was all down to KKR hovering around what was left of the Bangalore contingent akin to hungry eagles staring down at a prey. 

But Varun Chakravarthy, with two wickets thus far to his name and two big wickets at that in the form of Maxwell and Lomror, wasn’t done yet; his part in the game was all but over. 

His target now was the lower order of the Royal Challengers Bangalore, who by now, had already been royally challenged. 

Rather remarkably, this time Varun Chakravarthy gathered yet another important wicket and in the context of the match, the biggest of them all at that time: Dinesh Karthik. 

With the going getting difficult by each passing delivery and the asking rate inching skywards, Karthik, the belligerent right hander in a desperate attempt to send yet another one into the stands toyed with a much shorter Varun Chakravarthy delivery in the middle of the eighteenth over.

God knows what the plan may have been by pitching one a bit too short, nonetheless, it paid off well; the Bangalore keeping batter succeeding only to land safely into the hands of Rinku Singh, stationed at the deep mid-wicket boundary. 

As Karthik returned cutting a rather sorry figure, Chakravarthy was chuffed; a complete contrast given the changing vagaries of the game. 

Now all that remained in the game were mere formalities. The destructive and rather too heavy batting order had already been dismantled and sent back. 

On his own, Chakravarthy, who continues to grow with each game and further cement his place as one of the finest spinners in the history of the Indian Premier League, had dismissed a third of Bangalore’s order. 

And it seemed, he did so without much ado; unafraid to toss the odd ball up and succeeding remarkably with even those deliveries that didn’t seem to carry a hint of much spin.