How does IPL's new find Varun Chakravarthy bowl?

If you pause at some of Varun Chakravarthy's video recordings from TNPL, where he represented Karaikudi Kalaai, none would be able to state with authority that he is a spinner.

When as many as five IPL franchises - Delhi Capitals, Rajasthan Royals, Kings XI Punjab, Kolkata Knight Riders and Chennai Super Kings – were fighting tooth and nail to get him in their team, not for once thinking about the cost, 28-year-old architect-turned cricketer Varun Chakravarthy was at his home, watching the unthinkable unfold in his television set with his father and mother for company.

After the longest battle of IPL 2019, Kings XI Punjab finally got a hold of him for a staggering 8.40 crores – exactly 42 times more than his base price of 20 lakhs. Immediately a question came to every cricket follower’s mind, barring those at the auction table or those who followed the last edition of Tamil Nadu Premier League, ‘How does Varun Chakravarthy bowl? Is he that good?’

Chakravarthy is a leg-spinner but certainly not the regular kind. He doesn’t get side-arm and yet face the batsman straight while delivering the ball like a Shane Warne, nor does he use his height, relying more on the pace variation and accuracy of an Anil Kumble. He, in fact, is a genre of his own when it comes to leg-spin bowling.

C V Varun spun a web in TNPL 2018. Will the batters be able to decode his magic in #IPL2019? pic.twitter.com/ha2aCjicdt

— TNPL (@TNPremierLeague) December 19, 2018

If you pause at some of his video recordings from TNPL, where he represented Karaikudi Kalaai, none would be able to state with authority that he is a spinner. His arm-speed, position of the body and release give you an impression of a medium pacer, the one who clocks around mid 120s but does his job in the limited overs cricket. Varun bowls leg-spin with that sort of posture. Most of his deliveries aren’t normal tweaks of the wrists but still, he classifies to be a wrist spinner.

He mostly relies on pace and length variations, both of which got him a huge amount of success in the TNPL. Unlike other leggies, who cringe at the thought of bowling length, Chakravarthy thrives on pitching it on a fast bowler’s good length. More than half of his wickets in the TNPL came from deliveries which were pitched on a good length area. His trickeries impressed India’s premier off-spinner R Ashwin so much that on his recommendations, he was fast-tracked into the Tamil Nadu side for the Vijay Hazare domestic one-dayers.

He picked up 22 wickets in his 9 List A games for Tamil Nadu and that was an early indication that he could go big in this auction. But even his greatest of admirers – the list includes two of India’s most successful spinners Ashwin and Harbhajan – would not have bet for him to be sold at over 8 crores.

“I did not expect this massive amount and I was just hoping to be picked at my base price of 20 lakh,” Varun told ESPNCricinfo.

Varun, in fact, got a call from his anna (brother) Ashwin, who himself shot into limelight based on his carom balls after the auction. “Ashwin anna called me up from Australia and wished me after the auction and I thanked him for showing faith in me,” Varun added.

Varun would play under Ashwin in Kings XI Punjab in IPL 2019.