IND vs BAN 2024: Once you are not in the Indian side, people tend to write you off very easily – Varun Chakravarthy

India’s mystery spinner Varun Chakravarthy feels people wrote him off easily after he was not in the Indian team. The Tamil Nadu spinner made his T20I debut in the T20 World Cup 2021 but could not deliver with the ball.

After three long years, Chakravarthy made a return to the national team after impressing one and all in the IPL, where he scalped 21 wickets in 15 matches at an average of 19.14 and an economy rate of 8.04 and ended as the second-highest wicket-taker of the season. Ergo, he played an instrumental role in taking Kolkata Knight Riders to glory in the previous edition.

On his return, Chakravarthy returned with impressive figures of 3-31 in his quota of four overs against Bangladesh at the New Madhavrao Scindia Cricket Stadium, Gwalior. The 33-year-old accounted for Towhid Hridoy, Jaker Ali, and Rishad Hossain in his fine spell. In fact, Chakravarthy could have dismissed Towhid Hridoy when he was on 3 but Nitish Reddy could not pick up the ball in the lights.

Varun added taking part in the TNPL gave him a lot of confidence. He scalped 12 wickets in 10 matches in the tournament at an average of 19.83 and shared the dressing room with Ravichandran Ashwin.

Varun Chakravarthy said after the match, “There have been many (challenges), once you are not in the Indian side, people tend to write you off very easily. You need to stay in the highest level, again and again you need to keep knocking the door, thankfully this time it happened, hopefully I can keep continuing my good work.”

He added, “After three long years, it was definitely emotional for me. Feels nice to be back in the Blues. It feels like a rebirth, I just want to stick to the process, that’s what I have been following in the IPL as well, I don’t want to go beyond what’s there and I just want to stay in the present, that’s why I don’t want to think too much or express too much. After IPL I played few tournaments and one of those was TNPL, it’s a very good tournament and high standard as well. That’s a place where I work a lot, with Ash (Ashwin) bhai also, we won the championship as well, which gave me the confidence here. It was a good preparation for me for this series.”

The second match of the series will be played at the Arun Jaitley Stadium, Delhi on Wednesday.