Varun Chakravarthy was part of India’s playing XI against Pakistan on Sunday because of the “mystery factor” in his bowling. But former cricketer Salman Butt thinks the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) spinner is no surprise for Pakistan. He also added that the tweaker’s style is pretty common on the streets of Pakistan.
Salman Butt on Varun Chakravarthy
Chakravarthy ended the match with figures of 0/33 where India loses for the first time against Pakistan in a World Cup event.
“Varun will never be as effective against Pakistan as he is in the IPL. There are overseas players in IPL who were not able to pick him but Pakistan have no issues with mystery bowling,” Butt said on his Youtube channel.
Butt took the example of former Sri Lanka spinner Ajantha Mendis and further said that Chakravarthy remains a good bowler but Pakistan batsmen have grown up playing against these kinds of bowlers.
“Ajantha Mendis struggled a lot against us and in the end he was not selected against us. The type of bowling Varun uses as a variety is common here in street cricket. It’s not that he is not good, it’s just that we are used to it,” said Butt.
“Later, when he will analyse the match, in videos he will see that the batsmen were playing him easily regardless of whether he was bringing the ball in or taking it out. They will know this is not going to work, you need good pace and proper spinners,” he said.
“There can’t be flight for finger spinners, the ball always come at a low trajectory. Basically, if you have never played finger spinners, you wouldn’t know what’s happening. But if you have played them then there is absolutely no issues, you just need to look at the bowler’s hand and you can predict what the delivery is going to be,” he said.
Chakravarthy was KKR’s highest wicket-taker with 18 scalps but against Pakistan, openers Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan were able to pick him easily with both players hitting sixes in his final over. Pakistan eventually chased down a target of 152 without losing a wicket to record their first-ever World Cup win over India.
