Former Indian middle-order batter Suresh Raina who recently won yet another IPL title with Chennai Super Kings has been very impressed with the performances of Kolkata Knight Riders’ Varun Chakravarthy. The mystery spinner has troubled opposition batting units throughout the IPL and has bowled extremely tight spells.
In his column for ICC’s website, Raina chose the Tamil Nadu spinner as the X-factor for the Indian Team in the T20 World Cup and believes that he will be able to get the best out of the pitches in UAE. The lack of enough international experience doesn’t bother the southpaw who firmly believes that Varun Chakravarthy will be able to exploit the pace on the pitches.
‘’My experience in the IPL was that the wickets in UAE and Oman will be very, very challenging when it comes to the mystery spinners. That makes Varun Chakravarthy the main guy in the India bowling attack. He has showed he can exploit the pace of the pitches. Varun has only played three T20Is, but I’m not concerned by his lack of experience,” he wrote in the column.
In the past two seasons of the IPL, Varun Chakravarthy has emerged as a breakout star. Both the tournaments were held in the UAE at some point and the spinner has notched up tremendous numbers. In IPL 2020, he picked up 13 wickets at an average of 20.94 and had an economy rate of 6.84. He had a more fruitful IPL 2021 season and managed to scalp 18 wickets in 17 games at an average of 24.88 and an economy rate of 6.54 as his team KKR finished runners-up to CSK in the final!
India have also backed seam-bowling all-rounder Shardul Thakur and he has been included in the 15-man squad for the World Cup. Initially, Thakur had been chosen as a reserves player but with Hardik Pandya not bowling a single over in IPL 2021 and with Thakur’s excellent form in the UAE leg of IPL 2021, he got the nod in the main squad.
‘’There is plenty of experience in this team, particularly in the seam attack. Bhuvneshwar Kumar, in particular, leads the way when it comes to experience and knowledge of how to deal with the big games. The inclusion of Shardul Thakur can also give extra strength to the fast bowlers that Virat has at his disposal,” said Raina on his CSK teammate.
