Since returning to the Indian team, Varun Chakravarthy has been nothing short of sensational. What makes him so dangerous, and how can England tackle him in the last two T20Is of the sides' bilateral series?
Varun has taken 27 wickets in 10 matches – including a record-breaking 12 scalps in the four-match series in South Africa– ever since he was recalled to the T20I setup last October. He’s a leg-spinner by name, but is probably more part of the growing band of ‘mystery’ spinners now going around in the game’s shortest format.
At any rate, he is a mystery to England’s batters. In the first three T20Is of this five-match series, he’s taken 10 wickets for 87 runs, in 12 overs. Six of these wickets have been bowled.
Harry Brook claimed the smog made it difficult to pick Varun in Kolkata, and the spinner, almost in response, dismissed him in identical fashion in Chennai. (Brook's claim wasn’t wrong, rather ill-advised and ill-timed.) But there is a larger issue at play than just the smog. England have had trouble reading Varun – and indeed, India’s other spinners.
This isn’t unique to them, though. In India’s previous T20I series against South Africa and Bangladesh, batters were repeatedly attempting to play him off the wicket, since they couldn’t read him from the hand.
It’s not for a lack of trying. But opposition batters need to know what they're looking for.
Why is it hard to pick Varun Chakravarthy?
Against traditional leg-spinners, batters are taught to identify the googly – the ball that pitches and spins back into the right-hander, rather than leaving them like the stock ball does.
The tell-tale sign of a googly is the bowler’s hand. Since the googly is delivered out of the back of the hand, as opposed to the side with a normal leg break, batters know if they see the back of the bowler’s palm facing them, they can set up to play the ball turning the other way.
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But of course, Varun isn’t a traditional leg-spinner. This method doesn’t work against him for one simple reason – he delivers both the leg break and the googly from the side of the hand. So a batter who thinks the back of the hand is what they need to look out for, is left none the wiser against him.
It doesn't help the batters' case that Varun doesn't treat the googly as a variation from a stock ball. Traditionally, the majority of leg spinners spin the ball away from the right-hander, with the one coming back in just an occasional variation.
But across the last three IPL seasons, where data is available, Varun bowled the leg-break 57 per cent of the time to right-handers, and 49 per cent of the time to left-handers – meaning the googly isn't just a deviation from a pattern, but accounts for a significant portion of his deliveries.
Varun Chakravarthy – Proportion of leg-breaks bowled in the last three IPL seasons
| To RHB | To LHB | |
| IPL 2022 | 63.3% | 56.9% |
| IPL 2023 | 46.2% | 38.8% |
| IPL 2024 | 62.2% | 55.3% |
| Overall | 57.2% | 49.4% |
Vital cues: How batters can try to read Varun
If a batter is trying to read Varun from the hand, there is one potential cue from their perspective. When he bowls the googly, his middle finger sticks out a touch – compared to the leg-break where it's right on the ball and plays a role in spinning it.
But this is something that, realistically, is only visible on slow-motion replays. Expecting a batter to spot this from 22 yards away, from Varun's quick-arm action, is quite far-fetched.
Rather, batters can use a cue that they're used to looking out for – the direction of the seam.
When facing Varun, they might be better served by not observing his hand and fingers, but focusing on the ball, waiting for the milliseconds after it comes out of his hand.
The googly is almost delivered like a cross-seamer, constantly being scrambled as the ball rotates in the air. Contrast that to the leg-break, where the seam is presented quite prominently, facing towards slip for the right-handed batter. This way, the side of the ball is almost always cleanly visible to the batter.
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Now, this is also easy to see in slow motion, and is much simpler to talk about than execute. Crucially though, it has the advantage of being a more familiar task for batters.
When facing up to pace bowlers, most batters are attempting to pick up the seam orientation, so they know whether the ball will swing away or back in to them. It's a similar exercise here – and at a slightly slower speed than against a pacer.
If Varun is figured out, can he adapt?
It's a big if, and even if he is, it's unlikely to happen quickly. There's also one advantage he may have over other spinners.
Very often, when batters are unable to pick a bowler from the hand, and realise that playing them off the wicket is extremely risky, they can default to employing the sweep and reverse sweep – cross-batted shots which can help 'smother' the ball, whichever way it spins from the pitching point.
But key to Varun's renaissance in the past couple of years has been the component of overspin, something he has touched upon before. After the first T20I against Bangladesh in October last year, he'd said, "I used to be a side-spin bowler, but right now, I have completely shifted to being an over-spin bowler.
"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 effort I put in was on my technical side."
