Varun Chakravarthy picks five-for against New Zealand, joins elite Champions Trophy list

Spin wizard Varun Chakravarthy has become the third Indian cricketer to claim a five-wicket haul in the Champions Trophy. He followed in the footsteps of Ravindra Jadeja, who first accomplished this feat in the 2017 edition, and Mohammed Shami, who recently achieved it against Bangladesh in the same tournament.

The 33-year-old wasn’t India’s first-choice spinner in the tournament as Kuldeep Yadav, Jadeja and Axar Patel were the three options that India had in the opening two games against Bangladesh and Pakistan. Interestingly, the Rohit Sharma-led side benched Harshit Rana from their last league game against New Zealand and brought Varun into the playing XI. They backed four spinners and that eventually helped India massively to get over the line.

The 2013 champions didn’t have a great time with the bat as they were reduced to 30/3 at one stage. Shreyas Iyer and Axar Patel



stitched a crucial 98-run partnership to bring some stability. The prior eventually scored 79 runs while the all-rounder made 42. Towards the fag end, Hardik Pandya played a valuable knock of 45 runs as the team posted 249 runs in the first innings.

New Zealand started well with the bat in the second innings but many of their players failed to capitalise. Star batter Kane Williamson backed himself and played an important knock of 81 runs but that wasn’t enough. He kept the Kiwis in the hunt for the longest time before Axar Patel sent him back to the pavilion.

On the other hand, Varun picked up wickets on a consistent basis to keep the Kiwis in check. He dismissed Will Young, Glenn Phillips, Michael Bracewell, Mitchell Santner and Matt Henry. Courtesy of his five-for, India won the match by 44 runs and topped the Group A points table. They will now play Australia in the semi-final.