T20 World Cup 2026: Varun Chakravarthy returns to settle unfinished business with Pakistan
Varun Chakravarthy (Source: IG/@chakaravarthyvarun)
Published - 13 Feb 2026, 05:47 PM• Read time - 5 mins
Varun Chakravarthy walked into India's T20 World Cup 2021 squad with a mystique. Batters had spent an entire season trying, and failing, to decode him.
He wasn’t just another spinner in the mix; he was the trump card. Fresh off a stellar IPL 2021 with Kolkata Knight Riders, where he finished as the leading wicket-taker among spinners with 18 wickets at an economy of 6.58, he carried an aura of inevitability.
He was billed as the spinner who would take the T20 World Cup by storm, and his KKR teammate Dinesh Karthik even tipped him to finish as the bowler of the tournament.
“My choice is a guy called Varun Chakravarthy,” Dinesh Karthik said on an ICC digital show before the tournament. “I feel he’s got something really special in him. If India goes all the way, I can promise you this boy that I’m speaking about will have played a major role… Remember the name Varun Chakravarthy.”
But just when it seemed that the timing was perfectly aligned for him, it all unraveled.
The night the script fell apart
The script, though, didn’t follow the prophecy. India’s T20 World Cup 2021 opener against Pakistan in Dubai was supposed to be the stage where Chakravarthy’s mystery would suffocate a line-up that historically struggled against high-quality spin. Instead, it became the night that scarred him.
Tasked with defending 152, Chakravarthy returned figures of 0 for 33 in his four overs. On paper, it wasn’t a disastrous spell. In reality, it was swallowed whole by the magnitude of what followed. Pakistan cruised to a 10-wicket win, handing India their first-ever defeat to their neighbours in a World Cup, across formats.
In the post-mortem that inevitably followed such a seismic result, Chakravarthy, who had been billed as the X-factor, was quickly recast as a symbol of what went wrong. His mystery was mocked, his selection questioned, and his effectiveness was ridiculed across social media. He played two more games in that tournament, against New Zealand and Scotland, but failed to take a wicket.
Soon after, he was out of the Indian set-up. Someone who had burst onto the scene as the trump card had been discarded.
The grind, the dip, and the comeback
The fallout seeped into his franchise cricket form too. In IPL 2022, Chakravarthy looked a shadow of his 2021 self, with only six wickets in 11 games, an economy rate climbing to 8.51, and a rhythm that seemed to have deserted him. For a bowler whose entire value proposition was control and deception, it was a jarring regression.
But one dip doesn’t define a career, and neither does one peak.
In 2023, Chakravarthy quietly began to stitch himself back together. The numbers told the story first: 20 wickets in 14 IPL games, KKR’s leading wicket-taker, and a return to the kind of impact that had once made him India’s great T20 hope.
In 2024, he went one better, 21 wickets in 15 matches, the second-highest tally in the tournament behind Harshal Patel (24), while operating at an economy of 8.04 on often unforgiving surfaces.
And yet, the India door did not immediately reopen. Despite back-to-back standout IPL seasons, Chakravarthy was overlooked for the T20 World Cup 2024 and then for India’s white-ball tour of Zimbabwe. For a while, it felt like he was destined to remain a domestic and IPL force, respected, but on the outside of the international conversation.
That’s the thing about long roads back, though. They don’t always announce their turning points in advance. His grind eventually forced a rethink. A recall came for a T20I series against Bangladesh in 2024, and the mystery was back in India colours.
Full circle: Pakistan, again
Fast forward to February 2026, and destiny has drawn a neat, almost cinematic arc.
After 1,576 days, Varun is set, barring the unexpected, to face Pakistan again at a T20 World Cup. The venue this time is the R Premadasa Stadium in Colombo, the occasion a Group A clash in the ongoing ICC Men’s T20 World Cup. The stakes, as always with India–Pakistan, are at their highest.
Only now, Chakravarthy is not just an eigma trying to justify his selection. He arrives as the No. 1-ranked bowler in the ICC Men’s T20I bowling rankings, sitting on 773 rating points. He comes in with form behind him too: 1 for 24 against the USA in India’s campaign opener, followed by a ruthless 3 for 7 against Namibia.
The mystique is still there, but it’s now layered with scar tissue and a deeper understanding of his game.
The mother of all rivalries, and an unfinished business to go with it
This particular India-Pakistan clash is loaded even by the rivalry’s own inflated standards. Pakistan had initially threatened to boycott the fixture, and it took a series of meetings, backchannel conversations, and diplomatic manoeuvring to keep the game on the schedule. By the time the teams walk out in Colombo, the contest will already be carrying the weight of more than just cricket.
Within that larger theatre, Chakravarthy’s story is a compelling subplot. In 2021, he was the symbol of a plan that didn’t work. In 2026, he has the chance to redeem himself. A heroic performance on February 15 would not only help India reinforce their dominance over Pakistan in the T20 World Cups, but it would also allow Chakravarthy to rewrite the most painful chapter of his international career.
For a spinner who once seemed to have the world at his feet, only to watch it slip away in the space of a few overs in Dubai, Colombo offers something rare in sport: a second shot at the same opponent on the same stage, with a very different version of himself.
The unfinished business is not just with Pakistan. It’s with the memory of who he was the last time he faced them in a T20 World Cup fixture, and who he believes he is now.
