Varun Chakravarthy and India’s captain Rohit Sharma celebrate the wicket of New Zealand’s captain Mitch Santner during the ICC Champions Trophy cricket match between India and New Zealand at Dubai International Cricket Stadium in Dubai, United Arab Emirates on Sunday (March 2, 2025).
| Photo Credit: AP
Rohit Sharma hinted that the team could play four spinners against Australia in the semifinals, as it did against New Zealand on Sunday (March 2, 2025). Varun Chakaravarthy replaced Harshit Rana for the game and made a case for including him in the knockout fixture as well by scalping his maiden five-wicket haul (in ODIs).
“We really need to think, even if we want to play four spinners, how we can squeeze four spinners,” said Rohit after his side’s 44-run win over the Kiwis. “Whatever works for us in terms of the bowling options, we will try and do that. But it is tempting.”
“We just want to go back and think about what the Australian batting lineup will look like and how we can try and see what kind of bowling options will work against them,” the skipper explained.
He also spoke highly about how Varun has improved over the last few years and revealed that even some of the Indian batters struggle to pick the mystery spinner.
“I think he’s become more accurate now from the last time he played for India. There was a little bit of inexperience in him, because he hadn’t played a lot of cricket. But right now, in the last two or three years, he’s played a lot of cricket, whether it’s domestic cricket, IPL, and now for India in T20s. He understands his bowling well.”
“There is definitely something about his bowling which he’s using to his advantage. Some of our batters also couldn’t figure that out, which is always nice.”
Rohit praised the spinner’s pace variation saying, “Watching from behind when I was standing in the slips, the variation of his has become a lot more. And when you have a little bit of mystery, you don’t want to be a one-dimensional bowler and bowl at the same speed.”
“You need something different, the pace variation, and the accuracy. He has worked on both. Now you see that he is getting a lot of wickets and getting more often as well, which is a good sign for us as a team.”
The skipper was also pleased by the performance of the middle-order led by Shreyas Iyer and Axar Patel, who bailed out the side from 30 for three to post a competitive total.
“Absolutely brilliant for us today (on Sunday, March 2, 2025) in terms of the middle order getting that opportunity and try and set up the target under pressure. They are very experienced in terms of the games that they have played, but getting some batting time in the middle, getting those runs, and that fighting total was very important from our standpoint.”
The 37-year-old was happy his side has won a game batting first after succeeding while chasing in the first two outings.
“It was the perfect game we wanted. We wanted to test everything we have in terms of our bowling options, the middle-order getting to bat long enough, and setting up the target as well. We wanted to bat first and see how that turns out for us, because it’s important to know what kind of conditions are there when you bat first.”
Rohit stressed the importance of staying calm during key moments when facing Australia in a big game.
“It’s a great opposition to play against. Australia have been such a great team over the years. So, we can expect some fight backs and some nervy times in the middle,” remarked Rohit.
“All we have to do is what we’ve been thinking in the last three games and approach the game in a similar fashion. We understand the opposition and how they play and stuff like that. But I think the more and more we focus on what we need to do as a group, as a player, as a batting unit, as a bowling unit, that will help us a lot.”
Published – March 03, 2025 07:49 pm IST