Varun Chakravarthy “doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence” at the moment, in Sanjay Bangar‘s opinion, while Irfan Pathan believes that Ajinkya Rahane “messed it up” when it came to using Varun correctly in Kolkata Knight Riders‘ (KKR) game against Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) on Thursday night at Eden Gardens.
Rahane bowled Varun in the fifth over, and Abhishek Sharma hit him for two sixes and three fours to take out 25 runs. Varun later bowled the 11th over, conceded just six runs, and didn’t bowl again in the game. Overall, he had just the one dot ball. But the positive for KKR was left-arm spinner Anukul Roy. He’s fresh off a Player-of-the-Series performance with Jharkhand in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, and against SRH, bowled two overs for 16 runs and took one wicket.
“Sometimes, you’ve got to see the mentality of the bowler, what he is going through,” Rahane said at the press conference after the game when asked why Varun bowled only two overs. “It’s not compulsory to bowl four overs. If he’s struggling, you’ve got to accept that he is struggling. I wanted Varun to bowl four overs, but the way their batters were going… Anukul bowled two really good overs.
“He is playing because he did really well in the Mushtaq Ali [Trophy]; he was the Man of the Series in the Mushtaq Ali [Trophy]. He can bowl in the powerplay, and he can bowl in the middle overs. It is not compulsory [to bowl the full quota] at all. If Sunil [Narine] is struggling [in a game], you might see him bowl two or three overs. Or whoever is struggling. On that particular day, what is happening in the game, you’ve got to read that situation and decide accordingly.
“Varun is a team man. He is going through that phase where he needs that support from each and every one. Sometimes bowling just two overs can help a player. Or one over. Or no overs. We want Varun’s confidence throughout the tournament.”
Pathan wasn’t having any of it, though, and was particularly critical of Rahane for giving the out-of-form Varun a bowl in the powerplay. For the record, Varun bowled the fifth over, too, in KKR’s first game of IPL 2026, against Mumbai Indians, and conceded 15 runs in that. He finished with none for 48 from his four.
“Captain plays a big role to get your confidence up as a bowler,” Pathan said on ESPNcricinfo’s TimeOut show. “If he doesn’t support you in a moment where you think you can do better and you have got the momentum, this is where the leadership comes in. And this is why he should not have bowled in the powerplay. You are losing on a bowler, you know, who can be your trump card, who can be your match-winner, who has been your match-winner.
“You are giving him the tough job as a captain. So, this is where Ajinkya Rahane did really well in the second half. But [in the] first half, literally [he] messed it up with Varun Chakravarthy by bowling him in the powerplay.”
At the start of the T20 World Cup earlier this year, Varun was being called “a cheat code” for India in the same vein as Jasprit Bumrah. But in his last six games before the one against SRH, at the World Cup and then against MI, Varun had conceded 273 runs in 23 overs, leaving him with an economy of 11.86, the worst for any bowler across a six-match streak (for a minimum of 20 overs) in men’s T20s.
Bangar, however, understood where Rahane was coming from.
“I think he [Varun] bowled a good second over because he’s gone for, what, 25 runs in the first over, and then after that coming back and bowled a second over really well,” Bangar said. “And I just feel that at the moment [Varun] doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence, and that’s the reason why Ajinkya is not using him. He could have been used [more] but having three spinners [Roy and Narine the others], you can understand what he was trying to do.
“Along with that, I felt that the use of slow balls became very good in terms of how batters were not able to get the ball or get those aerial strikes. Because [Heinrich] Klassen was trying to hit those sixes. Even Nitish Reddy was trying to get under the ball but they just couldn’t find the meat of the bat.
“So, smart thinking from Ajinkya Rahane to persist more with the seam bowlers because if he was so short on confidence as far as Varun was concerned, he could have used more of Anukul, which he clearly didn’t. Yeah, I mean, seven sixes in that innings came in the powerplay, and only two outside after that. So six hitting was just not easy.”
