Varun Chakaravarthy entered the T20 World Cup 2026 as the world’s best spinner. In the group stage, he validated the claim. He returned with 9 wickets in 4 matches. The mystery spinner was unplayable. In the previous 2 years, Varun was the world’s best, and he was proving it at the highest stage. And then, it all came crashing down.
Form slump
Varun claimed five wickets in the remaining matches: the Super 8s, semifinal, and final. However, he was hammered all over the park. In the semifinal, he gave away 64 runs as Jacob Bethell took him apart. Suddenly, he didn’t look like the world’s best spinner—he seemed like a deer in the headlights. No one had any idea what had happened. In a couple of days, he went from unplayable to fodder.
This trend carried into the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2026. Varun was the Kolkata Knight Riders’ (KKR) best bowler in the last season, with 17 wickets. In fact, in the ongoing decade, 2022 was the only year in which he wasn’t KKR’s highest wicket-taker in a season. But now, he was ineffective.
Varun Chakaravarthy T20 bowling stats (February 20 to April 18)
| Innings | Overs | Runs | Wickets | Best Figures | Average | Economy | Strike Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9 | 32 | 364 | 7 | 2/34 | 52 | 11.37 | 27.4 |
Injury blessing in disguise
His first 6 overs, spread across 2 matches, went for 79 runs. And he remained wicketless. After the second game, he missed the next two. KKR stated that Varun had injured his finger while taking the catch of Abhishek Sharma. But many speculated that he was rested or dropped due to bad form.
Perhaps it was true. Since his return with each passing game. He wasn’t exceptional against the Chennai Super Kings, but didn’t go for many. He picked up his first wicket of the season against the Gujarat Titans and bettered his economy once again.
Varun Chakaravarthy in IPL 2026
| Opposition | Overs | Wickets | Runs | Economy | Average |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| RR | 4 | 3 | 14 | 3.50 | 4.66 |
| GT | 4 | 2 | 34 | 8.50 | 17 |
| CSK | 3 | 0 | 26 | 8.70 | – |
| SRH | 2 | 0 | 31 | 15.50 | – |
| MI | 4 | 0 | 48 | 14.00 | – |
Back at his best
But now, he’s truly back to his best. On a helpful surface at the Eden Gardens, Varun made the Rajasthan Royals (RR) batters dance to his tunes. Ajinkya Rahane had been making the error to introduce him in the powerplay, despite him struggling due to the field restrictions.
Rahane brought Sunil Narine and handed Varun the ball in the 9th over. As mentioned above, the pitch had grip. It was slow and spinning. It was all Varun needed after 2 woeful months. He had an immediate impact as he sent Vaibhav Sooryavanshi back, giving KKR their first breakthrough.
One didn’t know then, but this started a collapse. RR was 81/0 in 8.3 overs. In the remainder of the innings, they scored just 74/9. At the heart of this collapse was Varun. He sent Dhruv Jurel packing in his second over, with Narine getting the better of Yashasvi Jaiswal. His last over, 15th, yielded another wicket. Riyan Parag walked back.
Varun ended his spell with 14/3. Just the figures alone are great. But there was much more to his bowling than dots and wickets. For the last 2 months, Varun had been bowling too full or too short whenever someone attacked him. The batters had also started to play him on the front foot to negate the effect of his stock ball, which he lands at the back of a good length area.
Today, we saw him spam that length. This was always the reason behind his success. He wasn’t a pitch-dependent bowler. But the moment the batters managed to make him miss his lines and lengths, they had no issues facing him. Well, Varun didn’t allow RR batters to do that in Kolkata. And that’s why he succeeded.
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