Chakaravarthy's best not enough for an India encore

To Varun Chakaravarthy goes the unhappy distinction of having taken his career-best figures in a losing cause. His 5/17 at St George's Park on Sunday was a thing of wrist spinning beauty, a marvel of control and creativity under pressure, an exemplar of excellence.

But it wasn't enough to stop South Africa winning the second T20I by three wickets with an over to spare to send the series to the Highveld locked at 1-1 with two games to come.

India didn't give their bowlers much to play with by totalling 124/6. Indeed, South Africa should have won much more emphatically. Chakaravarthy was the major reason they didn't.

"During the innings break Surya [Suryakumar Yadav] came and told us let's not think about the result, let's just go all out," Chakaravarthy told a press conference after the match. "And that's what we tried to do. I think we did our best and we could have pulled it off, maybe."

Of course, white-ball cricket doesn't do maybes. You either win or lose. So, as dominant as India were on a perfect batting pitch at Kingsmead on Friday - when they won by 61 runs - they will know at Centurion on Wednesday that they are one more close loss away from not being able to win the four-match series.

That, Chakaravarthy said, came with the territory: "In T20 cricket you can't predict how the match is going to go, but you have to prepare yourself for every possible situation." Happily for India, their players were more acquainted with that baked-in uncertainty than others: "Because we play in the IPL, we get to play almost every type of game; close games and nail-biters and when the totals are 200 plus. That helps."

As for Wednesday's game and the last match at the Wanderers on Friday: "The mindset has to be aggressive. When your team's score is low, you have to take wickets - that's how you can win. That has to be my approach in the next two games."

Chakaravarthy has needed a long time navigating the ups and downs of professional cricket to reach this state of animated grace. He took only two wickets in the 22.3 overs he bowled in his first six T20Is. His economy rate was less than a run-a-ball in four of those matches and never more than 8.25, but his lack of striking ability was a handbrake - he went wicketless in the last four of those games. Consequently, he didn't play in any of India's 86 T20Is from November 2021 to October this year.

He marked his return, against Bangladesh in Gwalior in October, with a haul of 3/31. Three days later against the same opponents in Delhi, he took 2/19. Even though he was again unsuccessful three days after that in Hyderabad, he had done enough to crack the nod for the South Africa tour.

How had he engineered his change of fortunes? "I had to go to the drawing-board and check out all my videos," Chakaravarthy told a television interviewer. "I figured out I was bowling side-spin, and it was not working out at the higher level. I had to change everything about my bowling. It took me two years."

Even so, "The last three years were tough. The only thing I could do was play lots of cricket. I started playing a lot in the domestic league in India. That helped me understand my game better."

Before he committed himself to a career in cricket, Chakaravarthy worked as an architect. You don't enter that profession without a better than average grasp of mathematics, particularly geometry and its focus on angles. Essentially, Chakaravarthy went back to his architect's drawing-board to learn to bowl with more over-spin than side-spin.

Sadly, Sunday's result over-shadowed his achievement. Tristan Stubbs' mother and Chakaravarthy's son share a birthday. But while Stubbs, whose 41-ball 47 not out was key to South Africa's win, was able to proudly dedicate his performance to his mother, Chakaravarthy had the good sense not to do something similar for his son. You don't make a fuss when your team loses despite you owning your career-best best figures.

The boy will, after all, have other birthdays. And, as Chakaravarthy knows, career-best figures are not cast in stone. What chance he improves them once more, or maybe even twice, during this series?