Former Pakistan captain Salman Butt came down hard on India’s mystery spinner Varun Chakravarthy, saying he was no surprise to Pakistan batters after Men in Green crushed Team India by 10 wickets on Sunday (October 24) in Dubai in the ongoing ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2021.
Chakravarthy was given nod ahead of the senior spinner R Ashwin, but, like all the Indian bowlers, the leg-spinner failed to pick up a single wicket and returned with figures of 0/33 in 4 overs against Pakistan, as Babar Azam (68*) and Mohammad Rizwan (79*) took the side over the line inside 17 overs.
Analyzing Chakravarthy's performance against Pakistan, the veteran batter said the way the spinner was bowling on Sunday; every kid in Pakistan plays this kind of bowling in street cricket.
Butt said after the match, “Varun Chakravarthy may be a mystery bowler but he was no surprise to us. Kids in Pakistan play a lot of tape ball cricket. Every kid in Pakistan plays this kind of bowling in street cricket, where bowlers do the finger tricks with the ball and try different variations.”
He also reckoned that Chakravarthy may not get a chance to play against Pakistan again after his performance against Babar and Rizwan in Dubai on Sunday.
Butt added, “I don’t think India will play Chakravarthy against Pakistan again and, if they do, expect the result to be the same. Just by looking at someone like Varun, Pakistan’s batters can figure out whether the ball is going to come in or go out. Whoever, the Indian analyst is, perhaps he wasn’t aware of the fact that the one who introduced mystery spin in world cricket, Mendis, wasn’t successful against Pakistan at all.”
He signed off by saying, “At the start of his career, Sri Lanka’s Ajantha Mendis also troubled a lot of teams with his mystery element. But his record against Pakistan isn’t great. After a while, Sri Lanka stopped playing him against India. We have never found any mystery in mystery bowling because we have grown up playing such kind of bowlers.”
(With Hindustan Times Inputs)
