Varun Chakravarthy initially panicked after seeing his giant deal at IPL 2019 auction

The auction for the 2019 edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) saw an uncapped player jointly ending up as the most expensive pick which is a first in the history of the tournament. The buy was Tamil Nadu’s mystery spinner Varun Chakravarthy, who claims to have the ability to produce six different deliveries.

The 27-year-old who has played just one first-class game so far, had his base price at Rs 20 lakh but was eventually sold out to Kings XI Punjab for Rs 8.4 crore, which is a whopping 42 times, a little short of the 45-times money that was spent by Rising Pune Supergiant for Murugan Ashwin, another Tamil Nadu spinner, in the 2016 edition.

Punjab had to fight it hard to get Chakravarthy as Kolkata Knight Riders did not let him go easily. It may be mentioned here that both Punjab and Kolkata are led by two Tamil Nadu players – Ravichandran Ashwin and Dinesh Karthik, respectively, who might have favoured the mystery spinner from their state strongly.

Varun has played in just one first-class game so far

Varun, who made his first-class debut only last month against Hyderabad and has just one wicket from that game, himself was caught by surprise by the huge deal his talent fetched him in the auction. He has played in nine List A games also and picked 22 scalps.

The bowler’s performance at the Tamil Nadu Premier League this year where he led Madurai Panthers to win the title has been a high point in his career so far and the Kings would hope that the architect-turned-cricketer will deliver for them on the big stage now.

Varun, nevertheless, conceded that the deal has put extra pressure on his shoulders to perform. “I was [watching the auction] with my parents, my sister and my grandparents. I was a little nervous when my name came up,” The Hindu quoted him as saying. “I panicked a little. I never thought I would go for so much. Then came a feeling of responsibility for the franchise.”

Left-arm pacer Jaydev Unadkat, who was bought by Rajasthan Royals, was the other highest-paid player at Rs 8.4 crore though it was less than the money he got in the last auction.

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