Former Australia player Tom Moody has shared his thoughts about Team India’s decision to add veteran spinner Ravichandran Ashwin in place of Varun Chakravarthy. While the latter had sustained an injury, Ashwin showed his class again. However, the veteran off-spinner has played his first T20I since 2017 as well. And, Moody felt Chakravarthy’s bowling was not the reason behind India’s defeats in their first two games. He also believes that the team has added R Ashwin because of his valuable experience.

While speaking to ESPN Cricinfo, Tom Moody said: “I don’t think that India’s performance to this point has been down to their bowling and Chakravarthy in particular. I believe the call to start the tournament with Varun Chakravarthy was the right one as he posed a bigger threat irrespective of left or right-hand batsmen. This change is more to do with India feeling they need to draw Ashwin’s experience at this point of time. Calm head during a difficult time.”

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Meanwhile, during the toss, Virat Kohli revealed that Chakravarthy had suffered a niggle and that was the reason behind his absence. Even, there were concerns regarding his knee heading into the tournament as well as they will have to play two more games.

On the other hand, former India pace bowler Ajit Agarkar has claimed that he was not happy with the change as he backed the mystery spinner Varun Chakravarthy. Notably, India had struggled with the new ball in the first two games where they have failed to pick up a single wicket in the powerplay. However, R Ashwin had a great spell where he claimed 2 wickets for only 14 runs in his 4-over spell while defending 210.

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Agarkar said: “You’ve got to feel a little bit of Varun Chakravarthy, he did not do too much wrong. Whilst I’m not convinced of the move, you’re still getting a seasoned campaigner. He will certainly bowl with the new ball.”