‘My Heartbeat Was Definitely Touching 200’: Varun Chakravarthy on Bowling Final Over During SRH vs KKR

Varun Chakravarthy’s expressions rarely ever tell you what he’s going through inside. There are no exaggerated celebrations, no sledging the batters, rarely he will shout at his fielders.

But is he as calm inside when in pressure situations?

On Thursday he admitted his heart was pounding when Nitish Rana, the Kolkata Knight Riders captain, asked him to defend 9 runs against Sunrisers Hyderabad in the final over of their chase.

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“My heartbeat was definitely touching 200 (beats per minute) but I just wanted to challenge them on the longer end so that was my plan,” Chakravarthy said during the post-match presentation after collecting his player-of-the-match award.

Chakravarthy’s night began by leaking 12 runs in his first over and it came during a phase when SRH shifted gears and looked favourites to chase down 172 thanks to a superb partnership between Aiden Markram and Henrich Klaasen.

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Chakravarthy was then taken off the attack and later summoned in the slog overs when SRH needed 38 from 30 having just lost Klaasen for 36.

The leggie’s next three overs went for just eight runs as he finished with figures of 1/20. He also allowed just three runs in the 20th over that saw SRH finish with 166/8.

A drizzle towards the closing stage of the contest had also made it hard to grip the ball. Chakravarthy’s plan was to challenge SRH batters to go for their big shots on the longer boundary.

Definitely the ball was slipping a lot and so my best bet was the longer side. That was the only thing in my mind. My first over went for 12 and Markram played some amazing shots. That’s how the game goes,” Chakravarthy said.

Chakravarthy said he tried on a lot of things in the build up to the season

“Last year, I was bowling around 85 kph. So I went back and was trying out many things and I realised that once my revolutions go down, my speed goes down. So I worked on my revs and that really helps,” he said.

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