Indian batter Ajinkya Rahane has questioned the team management for resting Varun Chakravarthy in the third T20I against New Zealand. Chakravarthy is India’s first-choice spinner for the T20 World Cup, but India played Kuldeep Yadav and Ravi Bishnoi in the starting XI at Guwahati on Sunday.

Chakravarthy returned with figures of 2-37 in the opening T20I at Nagpur and then bagged 1-35 in his quota of four overs at Raipur on Wednesday. The mystery spinner is the number one T20I bowler in the ICC rankings.

“Going into the World Cup, Varun Chakaravarthy is your main bowler and bowling in this format is all about rhythm. You don’t want your main bowler to sit out just before the World Cup. You don’t know how it is going to play in Varun’s mind. Even if the management tells him that we are just resting you, we are trying out Ravi Bishnoi. I would have personally loved to see Varun Chakaravarthy play all the games,” Ajinkya Rahane said of Chakavarthy on Cricbuzz.

The Mumbai batter doesn’t want the team’s think tank to overexperiment with the playing XI even if they take an impregnable lead in the T20I series against the Kiwis.

“You can’t think like that, it is out of your control. You don’t want to think about your combination getting into the World Cup. After this five-match series, your playing XI should be ready. I think the playing XI that they put out in the first game is the ideal XI. That combination looked really good,” Rahane concluded.

Chakravarthy has scalped 54 wickets in 34 T20I matches at an average of 15.34 and an economy rate of 7.09.