ICC T20 World Cup: Varun Chakaravarthy’s magic helps India complete group stage with all-win record

O’Dowd wouldn’t survive Varun’s mastery. The vicious drop undid him. He tossed the ball a bit and lured the batter into an agricultural heave. He missed it, turned back and saw the stumps distorted.

It was a night when the poor sets of stumps were battered. Varun’s googly disturbed them once more when he deceived Aryan Dutt with a deliciously tossed-up one. Then Bumrah pleased the expectant home crowd with a devilishly fast ball that took Edwards’ middle pole for a stroll down the Motera Road. The deception and trickery of India’s bowlers were unfathomable for their European opponents, unused to facing bowlers of this mettle.

They would board the flight with the regret of a dropped catch that potentially cost them the game against Pakistan. Cruel fate, they would grimace.

India’s group-stage campaign was not without hiccups. They endured nervous moments in the opening fixture against the USA. The run-less campaign of Abhishek Sharma is a bother, the occasional lapses had the fielding coach fuming at times. Washington Sundar’s return proved to be lacklustre. But for all their minor flaws, they look the most impregnable team of the tournament. There is no over-reliance on a nucleus of players. Ishan Kishan has been stealing the arc-lights but Surya has been chiming in with significant knocks, displaying his consummate mastery of T20 batting.

His 34 off 28 balls, like his 29-ball 32 against Pakistan, would be soon forgotten. He would be remembered for his chartbusters, the ones that the crowd hysterically head-banged to. He would be recalled for the strokes that defy the laws of physics, for the illusion he produces that his body is bereft of bones and muscles. This is a player who, at his best, has a kind of unscarred grace, a thrilling lightness of touch in his movements and the contact he makes with the ball, a victory of manoeuvrability over muscularity, a triumph of pure talent. The last two knocks have been throwbacks, an ode to the pre-360-degree days, an illustration that makeovers don’t mean delinking with the past.

No confusion

Every player in the team has supreme role-clarity. Like Tilak Varma, whose 31 was valuable too. He has been the master of support acts. He was Surya’s crisis aversion partner against the USA, the dutiful rotator of strike to Ishan Kishan’s whirlwind in Colombo, and the accumulator that let the heavy-artillery men blaze their guns in the Namibia fixture. It’s not that he doesn’t possess the strokes to dazzle, but among all the Indian batsmen, he is the most natural one to slip into an inning-holding role.

An anchor in the shortest format differs from one in the longer versions. He still has to strike at more than run a ball, still needs to punish the loose balls, and seek the occasional risk. But at the same time, he should protect his wicket and keep a collapse at bay.

It’s a complex shift in T20 cricket. A trifle slow, he could be the team’s momentum disruptor and could overburden the more daring partner or overload the hitters down the order. A shade of over-enterprise, and he could be interpreted as injudicious. It’s almost an invisible role, where more often than not, his score is reduced to a number on the scoresheet. The fashionable stroke-makers will steal the show; the lay onlooker might even deride him for the relatively sedate pace of scoring, unbeknownst of the true value he holds in the team. Sweaty days under the lights. But in the eventual scheme, his knock was precious too.