I Have Seen More Than 1000 Hours Of Zampa And Rashid Khan's Bowling: Varun Chakaravarthy

After making his international debut in 2021, Varun Chakaravarthy went three years without playing another game for India, only making his comeback towards the end of 2024.

During the time out of the national side, however, the 33-year-old made a radical change to his bowling, giving up side-spin to turn into an overspin bowler. It’s a move that has now proved to be a masterstroke, with Chakaravarthy dominating both IPL and international cricket, but he explained how arduous the transformation was, considering he had to start from scratch.

The mystery spinner revealed that he watched years of footage to understand overspin better, including watching ‘more than 1000 hours’ of Adam Zampa and Rashid Khan, both of whom are wrist-spinners who impart overspin.

"After the T20WC 2021, I understood that the skill level I possess was good, but it was not enough to make the batter doubt himself,” Chakaravarthy revealed in a chat with Ravichandran Ashwin on the latter’s YouTube channel.

“I was bowling more of side-spin, and it was not turning much in black soil. Maybe in red soil it was turning more, but it was just skidding through in black soil. So I understood that my skill level wasn't up there, and started watching a lot of YouTube videos once the T20WC was over.

"I have seen more than 1000 hours of Rashid Khan and Adam Zampa's bowling. I've saved many of those videos on my YouTube. I asked the question, 'why is their ball turning and not mine?' and then I figured out that they were imparting a lot of overspin.”

Chakaravarthy revealed how, ahead of IPL 2022, he openly told Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) owner Venky Mysore that he would likely have a bad season, but that will be a part of his journey.

"The subsequent year of IPL, where I was retained by KKR, before retention only I told the owner Venky Mysore that IPL 2022 won't go well since I'm making a technical change. But next two years it will be great. I told him I was going to remove my stock ball altogether. That was the biggest decision I made,” he revealed.

As it turned out, Chakaravarthy had his worst IPL season in 2022, taking just 6 wickets while getting dropped midway through the season. However, he bounced back emphatically post that, running through batters across both IPL 2023 & IPL 2024. Those two seasons helped him come back to the national team, and he’s since been a trump card for the Men in Blue.