Varun Chakravarthy bowled an expensive spell.
South Africa outplayed India in Ahmedabad last night, but their biggest achievement was taking down Varun Chakravarthy. India brought their ace spinner in the fifth over when the Proteas were already reeling at 20/3, with a plan to stifle them further.
Instead, Dewald Brevis and David Miller were proactive with their approach and transferred the pressure back on the bowler straight away. The southpaw hit as many as two boundaries and took 11 runs from his over, before Brevis and Miller combined to take another 17 from his next set.
Eventually, Varun Chakravarthy ended with 47 runs at an economy rate of 11.75, the third-highest among all his four-over spells, and took only a solitary wicket. On ESPNcricinfo, Faf du Plessis explained how South Africa smartly put him under the pump by using the crease, forcing the spinner to bowl defensive lines.
“What we saw, they (South Africa) did really well – Brevis didn’t stand still; he moved away from the stumps because Varun Chakravarthy tries to build most of his balls around three stumps, top of the stumps. What he did really well is he gave himself room to free up that bat, to hit him either over long-on for six or hit him past backward point for four. On the other side, Miller, a left-hander, is a really good slog sweeper of the ball. If he (Varun) missed his length, Miller was really good hitting him over long-on and cow corner.”
Once Varun Chakravarthy was put under pressure, he started bowling defensive lines, aiming to keep the ball away from Brevis’ arc. Even against Miller, he bowled wider lines and also shorter lengths to avoid getting hit, which took his wicket-taking threat away.
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After the initial assault, he was no longer looking to take wickets, bowling 22.22% deliveries on the leg stump or beyond and two wides outside the off-stump line. David Miller lost his wicket eventually in his final over, but his partnership with Brevis had negated Varun’s threat by then.
The Proteas did everything correctly in the fixture, but taking down India’s premium spinner eased a lot of things. The partnership between Brevis and Miller ensured that players like Tristan Stubbs and the rest of the lower middle order only had to face the fast bowlers, and that too once the pitch had eased up and lost its sluggishness.
Before this game, Varun Chakravarthy had 22 wickets at 11.36 runs apiece and an economy rate of 8.06 in eight innings, including a five-wicket haul, against South Africa. However, in the big game, the Proteas were smart enough not to allow him settle and disrupted all the plans India had despite losing early wickets.
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