Varun Chakaravarthy’s journey is quite inspirational. Until he turned 25, the mystery spinner was still seen playing tennis ball cricket before taking up cricket as a profession. Despite making his ODI debut at the age of 33, the mystery spinner has already shown his potential with the white-ball in other formats.
The Tamil Nadu spinner had an amazing start to his ICC ODI event, with a stunning five-wicket haul on his debut against New Zealand. Despite playing multiple Indian Premier League (IPL) events, the mystery spinner revealed that he was still ‘nervous’ in the initial stages.
“I did feel nervous in the initial stages. Not played a lot for India in ODIs, so was nervous. As the game progressed, felt better. Virat, Rohit, Shreyas, Hardik everyone was talking to me and asked me to calm down,” Varun said in the post-match presentation.
Funnily enough, the 33-year-old didn’t even know that he was going to make his Champions Trophy until a night ago. But such was his readiness that the mystery spinner turned up with best-ever figures for an Indian bowler on CT debut, finishing with figures of 5/42.
“Found out last night about play. Was expecting to play for the country and looking forward, but was nervous. It was not a rank-turner but if you bowled in the right places, it helped. The way Kuldeep, Jaddu, Axar bowled, even the pacers. it was a total team effort.”
