On April 3, Delhi Capitals (DC) lost most of their middle order to Varun Chakaravarthy's spin attack in Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024 Match 16 between DC and the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR). Chakaravarthy—who has career-best IPL bowling figures of 5/20 against the Capitals in Abu Dhabi in October 2020—dismissed DC captain Rishabh Pant and Axar Patel one after another in a turbulent (for DC) 13th over, and Tristan Stubbs soon after in the 15th over of the match at Visakhapatnam.
KKR have won 3/3 IPL matches they have played this season, but it was only in the match against DC that we got to see glimpses of the earlier Varun Chakaravarthy. To put some figures to this claim: Chakaravarthy leaked 20 runs without taking a single wicket in the two overs he bowled in the IPL 2024 match against the Royal Challengers Bengaluru on March 29. Against the Sunrisers Hyderabad on March 23, he bowled his entire allotment of four overs, giving away 55 runs and claiming only former SRH captain Aiden Markram's wicket in the 12th over. Chakaravarthy was at No. 19 in the list of IPL 2024 Purple Cap contenders at the time of publishing.
To be sure, Chakaravarthy made waves in the IPL even before debut (in 2019), when he was acquired by the Punjab Kings (then Kings XI Punjab) for Rs 8.4 crore - he was the Punjab franchise's most expensive player at the time, and only played one match that year. KKR acquired Chakaravarthy in 2020 for Rs 4 crore, and the spin bowler has been with the Shah Rukh Khan-Juhi Chawla co-owned franchise since.
Varun Chakaravarthy's IPL promise
Varun Chakaravarthy emerged as one of the top spin bowlers in the Indian Premier League over the past few seasons with Kolkata Knight Riders. The leg-break bowler, often called a mystery spinner for his variations in flight and turn, was retained by the franchise for Rs 8 crore ahead of the 2024 edition of the Indian Premier League.
Before playing competitive cricket, Chakaravarthy worked as an architect. He took up spin seriously after injuries stopped him from pursuing his dream of becoming a fast bowler.
The cricketer studied and developed the mystery element of seven notable variations — leg-spin, off-spin, arm ball, googly, carrom ball, the flipper and the top spin — to stand out in the crowd. He trained at the local grounds in Chennai by bowling three hours a day.
Chakaravarthy rose to prominence from the Tamil Nadu Premier League and was initially part of Kings XI Punjab in 2019. He joined KKR from 2020, and has been a consistent performer. He picked up 17 wickets at an impressive economy of 6.80 in his debut season for KKR. The spinner returned 5/20 against Delhi Capitals that year, his career-best figures in the league.
He picked up 18 wickets in 2021, when KKR finished runners-up.
The Chennai boy bettered his record in IPL 2023 when he finished with 20 wickets at 15.80 strike-rate and best figures of 4/15 against Royal Challengers Bangalore.
Varun Chakaravarthy IPL records
Matches: 59
Wickets: 66
Best bowling: 5/20
Economy: 7.60
4w: 1
5w: 1
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