Mystery spinner Varun Chakravarthy and his Kerala connection

Thiruvananthapuram: In the 32-member Indian squad for the upcoming tour of Australia, how many players do have a Kerala connection? Sanju Samson, obviously, and Shreyas Iyer, whose ancestors are from Thrissur. That's it? Not exactly! 

Not many were aware that mystery spinner Varun Chakravarthy, currently making waves in the Indian Premier League (IPL) for Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), had a Malayali connection until his surprise inclusion in the jumbo Indian squad on Monday. 

Born to C V Vinod Chakravarthy, chief general manager of BSNL, Kerala Circle, and Malini, the 29-year-old Varun was brought up in Adayar, South Chennai. 

Vinod Chakravarthy is a half-Malayali: his father Vitthal Chakravarthy is a Tamilian while his mother Vimala is a native of Mavelikkara. 

Varun, who had earlier worked as a freelance architect after pursuing architecture at Chennai's SRM University, used to visit his grandmother's close relatives who live in Mavelikkara and Kilimanoor. According to his father, Varun understands Malayalam pretty well. 

"The call-up to the national side was totally unexpected. We spoke to him over the phone last night. We could not contact him thereafter as there are restrictions on making phone calls," Vinod, an officer of the Indian Telecommunications Service 1985 batch, said.

Chasing his passion 

Cricket has always been Varun's first love. He played for the school team, but never got picked for TNCA’s age-group teams. He gave up the sport after class XII, did a five-year architecture course, and worked in a firm for two years before deciding to start playing cricket again at the age of 25.

"Varun worked as a freelancer for two years before launching his own design firm. But it was not financially rewarding. He was not comfortable living off his parents. He sought my advice before taking a big move in the direction of his passion. I told him to do what he thinks is right. We had full faith that he would make the right choice," Vinod said. 

The year 2018 turned out to be the turning point in Varun's cricketing career. Playing for Siechem Madurai Panthers in the Tamil Nadu Premier League (TNPL), Varun picked nine wickets in 10 matches at an excellent economy rate of 4.7. In the following IPL auction, Kings XI Punjab bought him for a whopping Rs 8.4 crore – 42 times his base price of Rs 20 lakh. The same year he could also break into the Tamil Nadu Ranji Trophy team. 

Multi-talented 

Varun is passionate about music as well. He has learned to play guitar and flute by himself with the help of YouTube. He also has very good drawing and designing skills. 

"Varun was just 3 or 4 years of age when he started playing cricket. He never went to any cricket academy. He learned the nuances of the game by watching videos. During the lockdown period, he, along with his friend, used to go to a public ground in our locality every night to train," Vinod said.

"I have worked in different parts of the country, but never got an opportunity to watch him playing. The first time I saw him bowling was in the TNPL. Now we never miss an IPL match featuring him. We were really happy to see him picking five wickets in the match against Delhi Capitals," he added.