India mysterious spinner Varun Chakravarthy claims he is benefiting from increasing the ball’s pace and revolutions. Whether it’s introducing a new ball or refining the current variants, the world’s top-ranked bowler claims he is always looking to improve.
“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,” PTI quoted Chakravarthy as saying after India’s 93-run win over Namibia in a T20 World Cup in Delhi on Thursday.
Chakravarthy has already discussed how switching from side spin to over-spin greatly aided his extraordinary performance. In 38 Twenty20 Internationals, he has claimed 63 wickets at a remarkable average of 15.19 and a thrifty economy rate of 7.06.
Chakravarthy finished Thursday night with three wickets in 12 balls, too good for the Namibian batsmen. He beat opener Louren Steenkamp with a googly off the opening ball of the game, demonstrating his precision.
In order to get more zip off the surface, Chakravarthy has also improved his follow through. Chakravarthy stated that he is constantly working on adding new balls to his deadly arsenal since he is a person who is constantly looking for ways to improve.
“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. 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.
Chakravarthy is not complaining as a bowler, but he was taken aback by the way the pitch behaved in the opening two games in Delhi and Mumbai.
“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.
As it did on Thursday night, Chakravarthy anticipates the dew to have a significant impact in Colombo.
“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.
Chakravarthy, who gave the opposition credit, was pleased by the strategies and variations used by Gerhard Erasmus, the spinner and captain of Namibia, who occasionally bowled round arm and from far behind the stumps, leaving the batters confused.
“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.
