KKR beat DC convincingly in Kolkata yesterday where Varun Chakaravarthy did his best with the ball. He was speaking after Kolkata Knight Riders’ comfortable seven-wicket win over Delhi Capitals at the Eden Gardens as well. He registered bowling figures of 4-0-16-3 whereas in the last game, they failed to defend 262 as well.
“We have to accept that this IPL is different. The last two matches before this, we didn’t defend that well,” Varun admitted. “Because the wickets have become very placid in the second innings and definitely the fact that we got to bowl in the first innings was good. The pitch was also a little helpful. The other pitches have also been slow but this pitch was a little bit more turning. That was the difference. The length is basically the same for all the matches. It’s just how the wicket behaves. In other matches, it was not giving this much help but this wicket gave and helped our bowlers.”
However, Varun Chakaravarthy spoke about how the side recovered from the humiliating defeat in their last game and posted a crucial win in their next.
“The last match was a very hard pill to swallow,” Varun again said. “We had many conversations with the management, we spoke with the coaches Carl Crowe, Bharat Arun sir, Gambhir, Chandrakant sir, Abhishek Nair; everyone chipped in. We came up with many tactics. Even Shah Rukh bhai, he came up to us yesterday and spoke to me lot about… [he said] ‘don’t take it personally, whatever is happening this IPL is just going at a crazy rate, just don’t self doubt yourself’. It was a good performance from my side also and the last game was helpful.”
Like others, he also felt that Impact Player has had a large role to play in a season of soaring team totals as well.
“I feel like I have been doing my processes well only but if you see the results, last match and before that, it was not out there. We have to accept that this IPL is different and we have to mentally accept the challenge. Last year the Impact Player rule was also there. The main thing is that teams have now understood how to better use the impact player this season. So they all know that there is extra batting and they want to charge from the first ball. And that’s how it’s going. However much the bowlers cry, that’s how it is. We have to take up the challenge. You can’t change the side of the ground or you can’t change anything,” he added.
Varun Chakaravarthy lauded the effort of new-ball bowlers who ensured that KKR got regular wickets in between as well.
“So that has been the trend and if you see Eden Gardens, everyone wants to post big totals and they have a positive intent. I can’t say that it’s wrong but I feel our bowlers in the powerplay, they bowled brilliantly. like how Starc and Vaibhav bowled. So we have to give it to our bowlers this time,” Varun Chakaravarthy said. “If they would have scored 190 or 200… I felt it was around 185 to 190 pitch; if they had scored that anything could have happened.”
