Varun Chakraborty took 3 wickets against England. (Photo-BCCI)
The first T20 match of the current India-England series between India and England was played yesterday at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata, in which the bowlers of Team India were seen in full form. Mystery spinner Varun Chakraborty was amazing. He took three valuable England wickets (4-0-23-3). Due to which England was bowled out for just 132 runs. Later, Abhishek Sharma wreaked havoc with a 34-ball 79. As a result, India chased down the target in 12.3 overs and won the match by 7 wickets.
Varun Chakraborty dismissed Harry Brook (17) and then Liam Livingston (0) in three balls in the Kolkata T20 against England. Varun also took the wicket of captain Jos Buttler (68). After the powerplay, England were scoring around 9 runs per over, but Chakraborty, who played for Kolkata Knight Riders in the IPL, turned the match in just one over.
Varun's 3 wickets proved to be the X-factor of this match. Talking about player of the match Varun Chakraborty, whenever he got a chance in Team India's playing XI, he always excelled. Varun Chakraborty is considered a good spin bowler, he can bowl in 7 different ways. They become very dangerous in the Indian Premier League (IPL).
Varun Chakraborty proves deadly with his mystery spin. (Photo-BCCI)
Made a comeback in the team in 3 years and impressed with a strong performance Varun impressed with his bowling in the recent T20 tour against Africa. He took 12 wickets in 4 T20 matches against Africa in November 2024. Varun's performance should also be appreciated as African pace pitches are not considered to be very helpful for spinners.
As for Varun, he is considered to be Team India head coach Gautam Gambhir's favorite spinner. A major reason for this is the association with Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR). As soon as Gambhir became the head coach of Team India, Varun also returned to Team India after almost 3 years in October 2024. Then Varun took 5 wickets in 3 matches of that series against Bangladesh.
Varun has so far taken 22 wickets in 14 T20 Internationals. At the same time, he has taken one wicket in a first-class match. Varun is considered the master of white ball cricket. An example of which is its statistics. He has taken 59 wickets in 23 List A matches. He has taken 127 wickets in 102 T20 matches. Varun has taken 83 wickets in 71 IPL matches.
Varun, who bowled 7 different ways, was a freelance architect Before becoming a professional cricketer, Chakraborty worked as a freelance architect. His entry in the IPL was due to the mystery bowling. Varun himself claimed a few years ago that he can bowl 7 ways. Which includes offbreak, legbreak, googly, carrom ball, flipper, topspin, toe yorker.
Chakraborty can spin bowling in 7 different ways. (Photo-BCCI)
Varun Chakraborty is very successful in IPL Varun played an important role when Gautam Gambhir guided Kolkata to the IPL 2024 champions. In IPL 2024, Varun took 21 wickets in 15 matches.
If we talk about Varun's cricketing journey, he was born in Bidar, Karnataka. He plays for Tamil Nadu in domestic cricket. He came into the limelight after Kings XI Punjab bought Varun Chakraborty for Rs 8.4 crore in the pre-IPL 2019 auction. He became the most expensive player of Punjab at that time.
Playing for Kolkata in IPL, Varun Chakraborty took a total of 21 wickets in 15 matches in the 2024 season. (Photo-BCCI/IPL)
Ashwin was impressed with the performance in the domestic Varun's impressive performance in the domestic Tamil Nadu T20 tournament impressed the then Punjab franchise captain Ravichandran Ashwin. Varun has many variations, he was picked by Kolkata Knight Riders in 2020 to strengthen their spin bowling department.
He did not disappoint and took 17 wickets at an average of 20.94 in the 2020 IPL season. He also took 5 wickets against Delhi Capitals in his bowling. He troubled the batsmen of world cricket with his bowling throughout the season. He took a total of 18 wickets in IPL 2021.
Image Credit: Images/graphics belong to (Divya-Bhaskar).