India spinner Varun Chakaravarthy focuses on increased speed and spin to dominate in the T20 World Cup.
Key Points
- Varun Chakravarthy focuses on increasing bowling speed and revolutions to enhance his performance.
- He emphasizes perfecting existing bowling variations over constantly adding new ones.
- He highlights the importance of adapting to varying pitch conditions, including low bounce and dew.
- Chakravarthy acknowledges the tactical bowling and planning of Namibia's captain and spinner, Gerhard Erasmus.
- He notes the impact of dew on bowling in the second innings, particularly in defending scores.
India's mystery spinner Varun Chakravarthy says he is reaping the rewards of adding more speed and revolutions on the ball.
The world's top-ranked bowler says he constantly pushes for improvement, whether it is adding a new ball or perfecting the existing variations.
"So I have definitely worked on few aspects of my bowling such as speed, speed and more revs. People do work on variations also, but I worked on perfecting my existing balls, so that helped a lot," he said after India's 93-run win over Namibia in a T20 World Cup here on Thursday.
In the past, Chakravarthy has spoken about how shifting to over-spin from side spin contributed immensely to his stellar success. He has taken 63 wickets in 38 T20Is at an impressive average of 15.19 and frugal economy rate of 7.06.
He was too good for the Namibian batters on Thursday night, ending with three wickets in 12 balls. Such is his accuracy that he dismissed opener Louren Steenkamp with a googly off his very first ball of the match.
Chakravarthy has also worked on his follow through that is allowing him to get more zip off the surface.
Continuous improvement and new deliveries
As someone who is always finding ways to get better, Chakravarthy said he is regularly working on adding new balls to his lethal armoury.
"That has been my process. I have always had some delivery coming up...It's up to me, if I am courageous enough, I will try it in the next match, but it depends," he said.
"There are few balls which just clicked for me in the matches, and there have been few variations which I have been trying for the last six years which did not come out," he said.
Adapting to pitch conditions
Not that he is complaining as a bowler but Chakravarthy was surprised to see the behaviour of the pitch in the first two games in Mumbai and Delhi.
"Again, same, if you see the matches that we have played, the bilaterals leading up to this World Cup, they were all very flat. This (Delhi) was definitely a little surprising, even the first match and this wicket also. But we have to adapt ourselves, whatever comes our way.
"Today also, it was keeping a bit low, but I wouldn't say there was a lot of turn, but keeping low," he pointed out.
Chakravarthy expects the dew to play a big role in Colombo like it did on Thursday night.
"Dew does play a big factor when you are bowling second and if you have to defend, sometimes it will play a big factor. There was a lot of dew today also, but we were able to do well.
"But we are also experienced because we play a lot of IPL, we know how to bowl if the dew comes in," he said ahead of the Pakistan game.
Praise for Namibian tactics
Giving the opposition due credit, Chakravarthy was impressed with the tactics and variations employed by Namibia captain and spinner Gerhard Erasmus, who bowled round arm at times and also from way behind the stumps, leaving the batters in two minds.
"I would say he bowled very tactically. He was very great and I could see that the way they had planned their bowling, they had worked in and there was a lot of thought behind it.
"If you see the last four overs, their bowling, they had precise plans and they executed them. So, they did come up with good research and plan," added the Indian spinner.
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