Former Indian wicket-keeper bat Dinesh Karthik has showered praise on Varun Chakravarthy after India registered a comprehensive 93-run win against Namibia in the ongoing T20 World Cup 2026 at the Arun Jaitley Stadium, Delhi on Thursday.
Chakravarthy returned with impressive figures of 3-7 in two overs he bowled. The mystery spinner struck with his first ball as he clean bowled Louren Steenkamp. Furthermore, Chakravarthy accounted for Jan Nicol Loftie-Eaton and JJ Smit.
Thus, he played an instrumental role in skittling out Namibia at 116. Karthik said Namibian batters were left bamboozled by Chakravarthy as the spinner was too good for them.
He said on Cricbuzz, “It’s like a 6th standard guy looking to get into IIT when you’re playing Varun Chakaravarthy because he literally bamboozles the best of batsmen. And somebody like a Trumpelmann or a JJ Smit, he’s not played anything remotely close to this. And he’s got a lovely googly. He’s got a ball that comes back and he’s hard work for the best of batters. And for Namibia, I’m sure walking in, this would have been the biggest challenge to try and play Varun to see what kind of bowler he is. What does he do with the ball? Does he bring it back in? Does he take the ball away? And obviously, they were found wanting for answers.”
“But for Varun, it just felt like, okay, let me just come, just make sure that I get my rhythm right. He came, he just bowled. It was like a practice session. He came, he bowled, got the wicket, started walking back. He just couldn’t be bothered even celebrating. He just walked back like that. It tells you that he knew what to get out of the game. But from Namibia’s point of view, they’ll go back thinking, wow, that is quite the bowler in T20 cricket. The mystery that they speak about really exists,” he added.
On the other hand, former Indian batter Rohan Gavaskar said Jasprit Bumrah is India’s pack leader but he doesn’t need to shoulder all the onus on himself.
“Well, look, he (Jasprit Bumrah) is without doubt the spearhead of this attack. But the beauty for him is… that he doesn’t have to shoulder the entire responsibility of this attack because this is such a good attack now. While he is still the leader of the pack, it’s no longer a stage where sometimes as a player you feel like, I’ve got to cover for these guys now. Now what it is, is he’s probably thinking, right, If I have the occasional off day where it doesn’t go around, it can happen. I know my bowling unit’s got my back now. That’s how strong this Indian bowling unit is.”
India will next take on arch-rivals Pakistan at the R. Premadasa Stadium, Colombo, on Sunday.
