India's Varun Chakaravarthy celebrates after taking the wicket of South Africa's Marco Jansen. (Reuters)Varun Chakaravarthy has thanked Team India head coach Gautam Gambhir for providing him with “role clarity” after his comeback to the national setup.
“Yes, we played the Bangladesh tour, and he was coaching the team. We definitely spoke a lot, and he gave me a lot of role clarity,” Chakaravarthy told reporters.
The mystery spinner recorded his career-best figures of 5 for 17 in the second T20I against South Africa, though India narrowly lost by three wickets.
“He told me, even if you go for 30-40 runs, it doesn’t matter. All you have to focus on is picking wickets. That’s your role in the team. And yes, the clarity he provided definitely helped me.”
Chakaravarthy was part of the Kolkata Knight Riders’ IPL-winning team this year under Gambhir, who recently took over as coach of the Indian team.
Describing his three-year hiatus from international cricket as “tough,” Chakaravarthy credited the intense domestic grind for helping him regain his form.
“Definitely, the last three years were a bit tough,” Chakaravarthy said.
“The only thing I could do was play a lot of cricket. I started playing in the domestic league (TNPL) in India, and that helped me understand my game better. That’s what really helped me.”
Chakaravarthy’s match-changing spell saw India reduce South Africa to 66 for 6 while defending a modest target of 125. However, a resilient partnership between Tristan Stubbs (47 not out) and Gerald Coetzee (19 not out) led South Africa to victory in 19 overs, ending India’s 11-match winning streak.
“During the innings break, Surya (skipper Suryakumar Yadav) came and told us not to think about the result and just go all out. That’s what we tried to do. We gave it our best and could have pulled it off.”
“Obviously, the mindset has to be aggressive when the score is low. You have to focus on picking wickets to win the match. That’s my approach for the next two games as well, as it’s a do-or-die situation for us,” he said.
India will face South Africa in the third and final T20Is on Wednesday and Friday at Centurion and Johannesburg, respectively.
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