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Dubai Not The Rank Turner Everyone Is Projecting It To Be: Varun Chakaravarthy
Follow UsThere’s been so much help for the spinners that India, against New Zealand yesterday, opted to play as many as four tweakers in the XI
On the back of the ILT20 2025 season where pace ruled the roost in Dubai, few expected the venue to behave like a spinner’s paradise in the 2025 Champions Trophy. However, spin has proven king thus far in the competition, in terms of economy rate, if nothing: the tweakers so far have gone at just 4.5 runs per over (compared to 5.3 by pacers) and have been impossible to put away.
There’s been so much help for the spinners that India, against New Zealand yesterday, opted to play as many as four tweakers in the XI, going in with one specialist seamer in Mohammed Shami.
However, ahead of the knockouts, Varun Chakaravarthy refuted claims that Dubai is a ‘rank turner’. It was, at least, far from that in the final Group A clash on March 2 (Sunday), according to the mystery spinner.
“It was not a rank turner as such, which people were projecting it to be,” Chakaravarthy said after the New Zealand clash, where he took five wickets and Indian spinners took nine.
“But definitely it was holding on a bit, and it was deviating a little bit just to create the doubt. So basically, you had to play around it.”
A T20 veteran, Chakaravarthy is still new to ODI cricket. The New Zealand game in Dubai, in fact, was just his very second appearance in 50-over cricket for India.
He revealed how playing a lot of Vijay Hazare matches have helped him figure out his ODI bowling and thrive in 50-over cricket. Notably, the 33-year-old was the highest wicket-taking spinner in the 2024/24 Vijay Hazare Trophy, where he scalped 18 wickets @ 12.6 a piece.
“My sequencing of balls as in how I construct an over is totally different compared to the 50-over format. And that I was able to figure out when I played the last two years in Vijay Hazare,” he revealed.
“And it really helped me to understand when I can bowl my incoming delivery or outgoing delivery or the straighter one or the top spin, whatever it is. But that gave me a sense of awareness of when to bowl, it is completely different from what I do in the T20. So, yeah, it took me a lot of playing.”
Things happen quickly for mystery bowlers such as Chakaravarthy in T20 cricket, but he insisted that thriving in ODIs ultimately coming down to winning the ‘patience game’.
“It is the patience game. You just need to wait it out and make - in such slow wickets you don't get as in a quick, the ball doesn't turn fast, it turns slow. So, you need to wait it out and it just happens, if it's your day it happens to you.”
It will be interesting to see if India go in with four spinners for the semi-final or drops one of Chakaravarthy or Kuldeep Yadav to play Harshit Rana in the XI.