New Delhi, Feb 6 (IANS) India wrist-spinner Varun Chakaravarthy’s relentless accuracy, pace and subtle variations are the factors which make him a very challenging bowler for batters to face, feels former India bowling coach Paras Mhambrey.
Since his return to international cricket in October 2024, Chakaravarthy has been bamboozling batters with his mystery spin and tight lines that offer little margin for error.
In the lead-up to the upcoming mega event, Chakaravarthy has taken at least one wicket in each of his last 13 innings. The streak is bettered only by Arshdeep Singh, who claimed wickets in 17 consecutive T20I innings between 2024 and 2025.
Since the T20I series win in South Africa in 2024, Chakravarthy has picked up at least one wicket in 24 of his last 25 innings. Chakravarthy’s impact is unmatched, as he is the leading wicket-taker in T20Is post the last World Cup with 57 scalps, ahead of New Zealand’s Jacob Duffy (48), Pakistan duo of Mohammad Nawaz (44) and Abrar Ahmed (44) and Bangladesh’s Rishad Hossain (42).
“It’s about the lines and the lengths that he goes. He’s always challenging the stumps all the time, right? So as a batter, the margin of error is pretty less. If you miss it, if you’re still going to go and play your shots and you miss it, most likely you’re going to be in trouble – getting leg-before or bowled – and that’s what is happening out here.
“The other bit is, obviously, people aren’t able to pick his variations. That’s become a challenge because it’s so subtle. It’s not like a very big change in the way that changes in his run-up or the delivery style, whatever. The third bit is the pace that he bowls, right? It’s one bit that you can’t do against him. Generally, what you do against a spinner is you use your feet.
“I think with the speed that he bowls, he doesn’t allow you to step out. So as a batter, that one of the couple of shots that may take the pressure off is not available to you. Then, as a batter, you need to look at other options,” Mhambrey told IANS in an exclusive conversation on Friday.
With conventional options unavailable, batters are forced into high-risk strategies that often play into Chakaravarthy’s hands. “You need to look at a straight hit, where you expect him to err a little bit on the length, which is not happening that often. So you start looking at the other options and the slogs. Then, as a bowler, because just the way he bowls, he’s into play, and I think that’s what’s really challenging when facing him,” added Mhambrey, who was India’s bowling coach in their 2024 Men’s T20 World Cup win.
India’s embarrassment of riches in the spin department includes Chakaravarthy, left-arm spin bowling all-rounder Axar Patel and left-arm wrist-spinner Kuldeep Yadav – a trio that could prove to be devastating if a few pitches turn out to be spin-friendly in the competition.
India also have off-spin bowling all-rounder Washington Sundar in their squad, and is recovering from a side strain injury at the BCCI Centre of Excellence (CoE) in Bengaluru. “It will be. Looking at conditions, especially when you’re playing in India and more so in Sri Lanka, when you think you will play it out there. The conditions out there, the soil and wicket will make it challenging.
“That’s not a monkey on my back right now to think about how do I fit all three in the combination, but we’ll love to see all three of them because they are your sure shot three wicket-taking options – sure shot 12 overs out there who can bowl in different phases of the game.
“Varun has proved it; Axar has proved it. Kuldeep has become… just the way he mastered the middle phases, end phases. All three are picking wickets and are capable of picking wickets. So it’s great. I hope you get to see them play. How often, I don’t know, but we’ll love to see them, all three together,” added Mhambrey, who played two Tests and three ODIs for India.
Aside from the spinners, middle-order batter Rinku Singh has established himself as a reliable finisher with his ability to deliver the goods in pressure situations for India. In 19-20 overs in T20Is, Rinku has hit 220 runs at a strike-rate of 275.
As per Cricket-21, Rinku has hit 25 sixes in overs 17 to 20 and hits a maximum in every 6 balls in this period. Add to it, 78% of his sixes have come against pace in T20Is, which made Mhambrey praise his understated but highly effective approach and few pockets of weakness to exploit for the opposition bowlers.
“If you just look at Rinku on the field, I think it’s easy to miss him, right? He is not the kind of guy who is very animated, but does his role very smoothly. He is a gun-fielder. I think when he actually drops a catch, you kind of surprise everyone like, ‘Rinku has dropped the catch!’ So that’s kind of a reputation that he has earned over the years.
“It’s purely because of his fielding and we have seen that from the IPL days. We have seen how destructive he can be with the bat and he has got the capacity to really play the angles as well. It’s not the kind of area that you can get away with saying that you are going to cramp him and he struggles with that.
“But it’s just free-flowing, so it’s very difficult to bowl to a batter like that, knowing that he plays the spin well and the seam option. So it’s not something as an opponent I’m going to look into. My great match-up is a seamer against him. May not be the spin, but seam is a match-up, and I don’t think that’s going to work with him as he does add a lot of power.
“His ability to clear the ropes is well known, and if you have someone like him batting at six, seven or whatever number you think that you want to work around, and with his ability to finish a game like that – it’s a challenge for the opponents,” he concluded.
–IANS
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