IPL 2026: Varun Chakravarthy is working hard and his attitude is right, says Ajinkya Rahane

Ranked No. 2 successful the ICC men’s T20I bowlers’ rankings and the joint-highest wicket-taker successful India’s palmy Men’s T20 World Cup rubric defence, Varun Chakaravarthy entered the Indian Premier League with sizeable expectations. Yet, implicit the past month, the enigma spinner has appeared a shadiness of his accustomed self.

The inclination that began successful the closing stages of the T20 World Cup continued astatine the Wankhede Stadium connected Sunday night, wherever Mumbai Indians openers Rohit Sharma and Ryan Rickelton took him isolated successful Kolkata Knight Riders’ season-opener. With KKR’s gait resources already depleted owed to aggregate drop-outs, the onus was connected Varun to supply breakthroughs. Instead, repeated errors successful magnitude and a fewer freebies allowed MI’s openers to dictate terms, turning the 221-run pursuit into a cake-walk.

KKR skipper Ajinkya Rahane, however, backed the spinner to bounce back, attributing the dip to intelligence fatigue pursuing a high-intensity tournament.

“Every subordinate goes done this phase. He is moving hard and his cognition is right. Probably absorption batters are playing him well. Coming from a high-intensity tourney to different high-intensity tournament, it is mentally challenging,” Rahane said.

Rahane urged the experienced spinner to enactment relaxed and debar overthinking. “He shouldn’t deliberation excessively overmuch astir results. If helium tin power off, enactment relaxed and support his caput calm, I americium definite helium volition bash well. There is nary uncertainty astir his cognition oregon enactment ethic. It’s ever astir the mind,” helium added.

The numbers underline the caller struggle. Varun’s past 4 outings successful the T20 World Cup produced figures of 15-0-178-4, including a 64-run hammering successful the semifinal against England astatine the aforesaid venue. Add to that the spell of 4-0-48-0 successful his IPL-opener and the system complaint of 2 runs a shot is alarming.

Whether Varun tin enactment down consecutive Wankhede setbacks whitethorn signifier KKR’s run going forward.