Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) star spinner Varun Chakaravarthy is not a part of the playing XI for the clash against the Punjab Kings (PBKS) in the Indian Premier League (IPL). The bowler finds himself out of the team due to an injury, and will not partake in the fixture at the Eden Gardens on Monday, April 6.
Varun Chakaravarthy had clinched two catches during the 65-run loss against the Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) on Thursday, April 2, with one of them being a controversial low catch to send back the dangerous Abhishek Sharma. The catch reportedly led to an injury, forcing the spinner out for the clash against PBKS. The extent of the injury remains to be seen.
Skipper Ajinkya Rahane revealed that both frontline spinners Varun Chakaravarthy and Sunil Narine miss out on making into the playing XI. The latter is dealing with illness, and has been replaced by his fellow countryman, Rovman Powell.
“Preperation wise every player has been fantastic, it is just about taking the small moments in the T20 game. Two forced changes – Varun got injured while taking a catch in the last game and Narine is sick, Navdeep Saini and Rovman Powell come in,” Rahane said at the toss after opting to bat first.
Kolkata Knight Riders: Ajinkya Rahane (c), Finn Allen, Angkrish Raghuvanshi (wk), Cameron Green, Rinku Singh, Rovman Powell, Ramandeep Singh, Anukul Roy, Kartik Tyagi, Vaibhav Arora, Navdeep Saini
Impact Sub options – Blessing Muzarabani, Manish Pandey, Tejasvi Dahiya, Rahul Tripathi, Saurabh Dubey
KKR bowling crisis has taken a turn for the worse after the recent blow to their spin duo. It is to be noted that they are already without the likes of Matheesha Pathirana, Akash Deep, and Harshit Rana. Furthermore, there is still no clarity regarding Cameron Green’s bowling availability. The marquee signing has yet to bowl a single delivery in the IPL 2026 campaign so far.
Varun Chakaravarthy faced a dreadful start to IPL 2026
There were expectations that the mystery spinner may have shrugged off his poor end to the T20 World Cup 2026 campaign, where he struggled after the group stage. However, those issues were only extrapolated in the IPL 2026 for KKR, as he remains wicketless.
In the first two games, he recorded abysmal bowling figures of 0-48 and 0-31 (2 overs), and he has looked severely short of confidence. He was hit for 25 runs off his first over in the clash against SRH as Abhishek Sharma dominated him in the powerplay.
Get real-time updates on IPL 2025, live scores, IPL Prediction, match schedule, points table,Result & squad –CSK, MI, RCB, KKR, SRH, LSG, DC, GT, PBKS
Edited by Gokul Nair
