NEW DELHI: India’s mystery spinner Varun Chakaravarthy on Thursday said he is reaping the rewards of consciously adding more pace and revolutions to the ball, an effort that has sharpened his effectiveness in T20 cricket.
The world’s top-ranked T20 bowler said he is constantly pushing himself to improve, whether by refining his existing deliveries or experimenting with new ones, after India registered a 93-run win over Namibia in the T20 World Cup.
“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.
In the past, Chakaravarthy has spoken about how switching to over spin from side spin contributed significantly to his success. He has taken 63 wickets in 38 T20Is at an impressive average of 15.19 and a frugal economy rate of 7.06.
He was too good for the Namibian batters on Thursday night, finishing with three wickets in 12 balls. Such was his accuracy that he dismissed opener Louren Steenkamp with a googly off his very first ball of the match.
Chakaravarthy also said he has worked on his follow-through, which has helped him extract more zip off the surface.
As a bowler who is always looking to improve, he said he regularly works on adding new deliveries to his 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 added.
While not complaining, Chakaravarthy said he was surprised by the behaviour of the pitches 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,” he said.
“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.
Chakaravarthy said dew could play a big role in Colombo, as 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 Indian Premier League, we know how to bowl if the dew comes in,” he said ahead of the Pakistan game.
Giving credit to the opposition, Chakaravarthy said he was impressed with the tactics and variations used by Namibia captain and spinner Gerhard Erasmus, who bowled round-arm at times and also from well behind the stumps.
“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 on it and there was a lot of thought behind it,” he said.
“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,” he added.