Decoding Varun Chakravarthy: Top overseas batters are playing him like an off-spinner

New Delhi, Feb 24 (PTI) Does a mystery spinner retain the element of mystery if he is over-exposed at the international level? Well, it is a matter of debate, but it is clear that leading batters are now not just reading him from the hand, but coaches have also devised the code to tackle him upfront.

Setting aside the Pakistan team, who don't feature in the IPL or play bilateral series against India, two top nations — New Zealand and South Africa — have done extremely well against the Tamil Nadu man.

He has been clobbered for 208 runs across 20 overs in his last five games against them, including Sunday's T20 World Cup Super Eights fixture against South Africa.

While he got nine wickets, an economy rate of 10.40 is much higher than his career economy rate of 7.11.

So what exactly are players like Finn Allen, Glenn Phillips, Dewald Brevis and David Miller doing right? "For any bowler, you first take away his strength. If it's googly then you play for or anticipate the googly and adjust from there. It has been the same with Rashid Khan. Everyone is better at playing him (Rashid) or Varun now because they are playing for the googly, the ball that gets most batters out," former Mumbai batsman Zubin Bharucha, who has worked with a lot of young Indian star batters, shared his observation with PTI.

The Associate nations, however, have found Chakravarthy difficult to decipher unlike the top players, who feature in the IPL and now play him like an off-spinner, who brings the ball back into the right hander.

"The Associate nations are unable to cope because they don't have a history of facing him. Most other (top) teams will be playing him like an off-spinner who brings the ball into the right-hander.

"And if the ball doesn't grip like it didn't the other day, then it becomes that much easier for both left and right handers and a little bit of the mystery goes away," Bharucha explained.

But it is not just Chakravarthy, as Bharucha believed that Pakistan's Usman Tariq will also similarly struggle if the wicket is on the flatter side.

"It will be the same for Usman Tariq too. They (mystery spinners) need a little assistance from the pitch for all their different variations to work. Varun, Tariq, as well as Rashid, are high-quality bowlers and batters will struggle against them, but if the surface is absolutely flat, they can also go for some runs." But Bharucha said that playing Chakravarthy in most of the bilateral games prior to the T20 World Cup was a plan which ideally could have been revisited.

"Arranging a home bilateral against a nation that's going to play you in a T20 World Cup a few weeks later and exposing Varun to them isn't the best preparation," Bharucha gave his take.

If one looks at Chakravarthy's recent media conferences, he himself has admitted that he tends to concentrate more on over-spin rather than imparting side-spin to his deliveries.

For the uninitiated, over-spin is when a spinner gets to turn the ball in forward direction and it bounces extra and takes off faster after hitting the surface. In case of side-spin, the ball deviates sideways depending on which type of spinner is bowling.

If one observes footages of Chakravarthy's grip, he mostly bowls the carrom ball or googly (which someone like Brevis played like an off-break). The carrom ball is a product of over-spin and when the pitches don't have sufficient grip, the batters do find it easy.

Bharucha gave some insights into how Chakravarthy operates and why South Africa were successful in negotiating him.

"Varun primarily bowls four deliveries. The carrom ball, the googly, top spin and one in which he seems to take the googly grip but bowls it like a leg spin. It's not a traditional leg spin by any means.

"Also, from a drift perspective anyone who bowls with his arm so close to his head will naturally get some inwards movement (towards the right hander), which is why bowling from over the wicket to the left-hander is always preferable to him as the ball will always be angling further away.

"From round the wicket it's more straight at the batter and if that ball doesn't grip then we know what happened the other day. I think Varun should be bowling over the wicket to both right and left-hander unless he is planning something specific against the right hander where he can take it away from him from round the wicket," Bharucha concluded. PTI KHS KHS AH AH