Kolkata Knight Riders assistant coach Abhishek Nayar has revealed that selectors have told Varun Chakravarthy to improve batting and fielding to make it to the India squad. Chakravarthy finished as the second-highest wicket-taker in IPL 2024 as he bagged 21 scalps at an average of 19.14 in 14 matches. 

Thus, the mystery spinner played an instrumental role in taking KKR to their third title. Meanwhile, Chakravarthy was also part of India’s T20 World Cup squad in 2021. The Tamil Nadu spinner played three matches but went wicketless in the tournament and later was dropped from the team.

“Varun Chakravarthy performs every year in the Vijay Hazare [Trophy], everywhere,” Nayar said on The Ranveer Show Podcast. “But I remember selectors told him, ‘You should improve your batting, you’ll be able to make the cut; Improve your fielding and you’ll be able to make the cut’. That was the mindset. So he scored a few runs in the Vijay Hazare this time and sent me a video [saying,] ‘I hit two sixes, scored 40 runs.’

Nayar believes it is crucial for a player to tick all the right boxes in all three aspects of the game to make it to the Indian team.

“So players automatically start thinking like that because they know it’s a requirement. He has also improved his fielding. So, there are things that players work on because they know it’s a requirement that you have to do all three things, you can’t survive with just one thing.”

Meanwhile, India has picked Yuzvendra Chahal and Kuldeep Yadav in the ongoing T20 World Cup. However, both of them were left out of the first two matches against Ireland and Pakistan as the team management have backed the all-round duo of Ravindra Jadeja and Axar Patel.