New Zealand captain Mitchell Santner is wary of the threat that Varun Chakravarthy poses in the final of the Champions Trophy. Varun, who dismantled the Kiwi batting order in the last group-stage match of the tournament, is most likely to play in the final.
Speaking about the challenges against the Indian team, Santner said that while several Kiwi batters have played Varun in the Indian Premier League, they would be watching his videos more closely ahead of the final. Santner said that Varun’s 115 km/h slider was the main threat, and they would try to keep a lookout for the same.
“A little bit of mystery, but it was the first time some of the guys have been facing him. I think they’ll learn from the other day. If the pitch plays a similar way, it’s going to be a challenge along with all three of their other spinners. I think the boys will be ready for tomorrow. We’ll look at a little bit more footage,” Santner said in the pre-match press conference on Saturday.
“I think we obviously know what his threats are now. That 115 km/h arm bowl, that got me. That was a bit of a threat. But we know he’s going to be a challenge,” he added.
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Senior India batter Virat Kohli would be another threat for New Zealand in the final. Kohli has been in sensational form and has scored two knocks of the highest quality while chasing in the ongoing tournament. Santner lightly touched upon Kohli and spoke about his knock against Australia, where the Men in Yellow were not able to get rid of the batter.
“I think Australia were probably on track to score a few more runs. But they kept trying to take wickets through the middle. And then India were able to squeeze them back to that kind of 260. And then I guess the master of a chase, Kohli, kind of helped that out. So, I think whatever you end up doing, it’s trying to do it well for, obviously, a long period of time. And yeah, hopefully, if we win the toss, we’ll see what happens. But yeah, I think we’ve kind of got to be ready for it to be either very similar to our game or a little bit different. And that’s finding out what works with both bat and ball for a long time,” Santner said.
New Zealand and India have only played once against each other in the Champions Trophy final. Back in the year 2000, New Zealand beat Sourav Ganguly’s India to win the tournament.
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