Varun Chakravarthy of the Kolkata Knight Riders struck 1/20 off three of his four overs at the death against the Sunrisers Hyderabad.
On Thursday, the Indian Premier League (IPL) match between Kolkata Knight Riders and Sunrisers Hyderabad saw Nitish Rana’s team pull off a stunning triumph that appeared improbable at one point in the game. The Sunrisers choked in the run-chase, needing only 38 runs in the final 5 overs thanks to Varun Chakravarthy’s superb bowling performance. The seasoned spinner, who was faced with defending 8 runs in the game’s final over, was accordingly named Player of the Match.
With Abdul Samad and Bhuvneshwar Kumar in the middle, the Sunrisers needed 9 runs from the final over to win the match. Chakravarthy, on the other side, only gave away 3 runs from 6 balls while also picking off Samad to give the Knight Riders a 5-run win.
“In the last over, my heart rate was over 200, but I wanted them to make it to the longer part of the ground.” My only hope was to bet on the longer side because the ball was slipping a lot. “In my first over, I scored 12 runs, Markram hit me for two fours, and that’s how the game goes,” Chakravarthy explained at the award ceremony.
Chakravarthy didn’t just reintroduce the Knight Riders into the game in the last over. He bowled three overs at the death, the other two being the 16th and 18th overs. In those two overs, Chakravarthy was also difficult to hit. The mystery spinner only allowed 9 runs in those two overs, finishing with 1/20 in four overs.
Varun noted after the game about the adjustments he’s made to his bowling: “Last year I was bowling around 85kmph, trying out many things, and I realized that I needed to work on my revolutions, and I did work on it.”
Chasing 38 runs off 30 balls wasn’t a difficult task for any side on any given surface. Varun Chakravarthy, on the other hand, literally suffocated the Sunrisers Hyderabad with his frugal three overs in the end.
