After producing a match-winning 3 for 14 to set up Kolkata Knight Riders‘ first win of IPL 2026, Varun Chakravarthy had no desire to turn his performance into a mic-drop moment. He instead credited the slower pitch offered up at the Eden Gardens on Sunday afternoon, and maintained that only if T20 surfaces have something for the slower bowlers, will they be “effective.”
“Look, just because I’ve taken three wickets today, I don’t want to make a sweeping statement and all. That’s the nature of the game,” Varun told reporters in Kolkata. “Next match, if the wicket has nothing in it, that’s going to happen [conceding more runs] to every spinner.
“As you can see, initially [in the tournament] every spinner was traveling. So that’s how it is. Once the pitches start slowing down, that’s how we start coming into the game and we start being more effective.”
Varun admitted there were “some tears in the dugout” after a fighting seventh-wicket stand between Rinku Singh and Anukul Roy took KKR from 85 for 6 to victory in the final over. They were chasing 156 and the modesty of their target certainly helped.
“If there is nothing in the pitch, that’s when bowlers start searching, they start getting confused, they are clueless”
Varun Chakravarthy with some home truths
When Varun was introduced, RR were 79 for 0 after eight overs with the openers – and the batters to follow – all set to impose themselves on the game. Vaibhav Sooryavanshi was only one boundary away from a half-century, but it took Varun just four balls to send the teenager back. After angling one across the batter earlier in the over, Varun went full on middle and got the ball to turn in. Sooryavanshi mistimed his slog towards midwicket and was caught in the deep.
Varun continued bowling “cramping lines.” Through his opening overs, he conceded little beyond dots and singles and that forced Dhruv Jurel into premeditating his shots in a bid to avoid run-rate stagnation. Completely outfoxed by a full ball from Varun that darted outside off, Jurel committed early to a reverse sweep and was stumped.
The third wicket, that of Riyan Parag in the 15th over, was a culmination of a sustained squeeze. Having worked him across deliveries, Varun bowled a googly on a short-of-a-length outside off that turned in, beating Parag’s slog across the line and hitting the stumps.
“Again sir, once there is something in the pitch, I go back to my strength,” Varun said. “My strength is to keep attacking the stumps. But if there is nothing in the pitch, that’s when bowlers start searching, they start getting confused, they are clueless, which happens to everyone. It has happened to the best of the best. So, no one can be judged with just one match of good performance and bad performance also.”
For the last two months, Varun had faced criticism about bowling too fast, being too desperate for wickets or having lost the mystery he once possessed. KKR insulated him from all of it.
“The main credit has to go to the coaching staff because they didn’t let the outside noise affect us,” Varun said. “Because there were too many people floating around with judgments, which were totally baseless. So at such times you need a very strong core that supports you.”
Varun’s spell was a reminder of his potency when conditions allow him to bowl to his strengths. However, the next four games are all with KKR on the road. He’ll likely be back on batter-friendly pitches, but this time he will have the confidence of Sunday’s performance behind him.
