India’s mystery spinner Varun Chakravarthy was ruled out of the must-win clash against Afghanistan owing to an issue in his left calf. India were expected to replace a wicketless Chakravarthy but the reason was unexpected. Chakravarthy had been injury-prone coming into the T20 World Cup 2021 but he was backed by selectors as someone who has not been analysed by international cricketers yet.
"Varun Chakravarthy has a left calf issue. He was not available for selection for this game," a BCCI media statement said.
The star Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) skipper was replaced by veteran Ravichandran Ashwin for the Afghanistan game. However, it is still unclear whether he will be fit to play the next two matches against Scotland and Namibia or not.
There were questions over Ashwin’s exclusion from the side after good performance in the warm-up games, especially when India needed batters in their lower middle order. The 36-year-old is playing a T20I after a long gap of 1,577 days. During this period, India have played 65 T20Is. Only Sanju Samson has had a difference of 73 T20Is between two appearances in the format for India.
Ashwin was impressive in the warm-up games against Australia and England. He remained wicketless against the English but gave just 23 runs from his quota of four overs. In the following match, he bowled just two overs in the powerplay overs and got the wickets of David Warner and Mitchell Marsh in the powerplay overs. Also, he conceded just eight runs during the fielding restrictions.
