Tamil Nadu spinner Varun Chakravarty looks doubtful for the T20I series against England after hasn’t done well on the new fitness benchmark set for Indian players, which is either completing a 2 km run in 8.5 minutes or scoring 17.1 in the Yo-Yo test. He was named in the Indian T20I squad for the upcoming series after he missed the series Australia when India toured down under.
If he fails to make the cut in the upcoming series against England, Varun Chakravarty will miss two chances at making his international debut for India in a space of five months. Last November, he was picked for the T20I series against Australia on the back of impressive performances for Kolkata Knight Riders in the Indian Premier League (IPL), but instead had to be checked into the National Cricket Academy (NCA) in Bangalore.
Varun Chakravarty Doubtful For England Series
He spoke to Cricbuzz and updated the status of his availability for the upcoming series. “I have not been informed of anything as yet,” he told the website.
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The Karnataka-born spinner is currently training with his IPL franchise Kolkata Knight Riders in Mumbai after almost three months at the NCA, where he had to work on his inability to throw — a problem that kept him out of the tour of Australia in November.
The website has further learnt that the rehab programme went well and there is marked improvement on his strength and conditioning but running has apparently become a problem.
Meanwhile, the Tamil Nadu selectors did not include him in the state team for the ongoing Vijay Hazare tournament. “He was never in contention for a one-day team berth because we consider him as a T20 specialist. It will be difficult to expect more than four-five overs from him because of the effort he puts on his fingers,” said Tamil Nadu Cricket Association (TNCA) secretary S Ramasamy. Interestingly enough, he was not picked for the Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 tournament either.
The five T20Is will be played in Ahmedabad after the fourth and final Test starting from March 4.
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