File photo of Gautam Gambhir and Rohit Sharma
Team India’s heroic victory against New Zealand in their final ICC Champions Trophy 2025 Group A match on Sunday unearthed a new gem in the form of Varun Chakravarthy. While Varun has been a proven performer in T20Is for a while now, he hit the ground running on his Champions Trophy debut, bagging 5 wickets against the Kiwis. Seeing him run riot, former India all-rounder Ravichandran Ashwin doffed his hat to skipper Rohit Sharma and head coach Gautam Gambhir for their strategic call of including Chakravarthy in place of pacer Harshit Rana in the playing XI for the New Zealand match.
In a video on his YouTube channel, Ashwin highlighted how tactically correct Gambhir and Rohit were in unleashing Chakravarthy during the New Zealand contest.
“I have to say this: top-class scouting, top-class analysis for Varun Chakravarthy against Daryl Mitchell. He was not allowed to step out. He did not read the turn, and he was not able to step down. India wonderfully cut down his scoring options, having fielders to cut down his sweeps and reverse sweeps,” Ashwin said.
There were many who questioned the team’s decision of playing 4 spinners against New Zealand, leaving just one front-line seamer in the team. However, Ashwin doesn’t think the decision to put Chakravarthy in the team was a ‘risk’. He also lauded the veteran spinner for the ‘unbelievable skill’ he used to undo the Kiwi batters.
“I don’t think playing Varun is a risk. I think they are not able to read him at all. He is not beating batters on the outside edge, and that’s why I am not able to understand why they are not able to decipher him. What is setting him apart? It’s the amount of revs that is allowing the ball to drop. It’s not dropping at 89 kph; it’s dropping at high 90s. It’s unbelievable skill,” Ashwin added.
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