Varun Chakravarthy struck in his first over with the dismissal of Travis Head in the Champions Trophy 2025 semi-final.
India spinner Varun Chakravarthy struck in his very first over to dismiss Australia dangerman Travis Head during the 2025 ICC Champions Trophy semi-final in Dubai on March 4.
Bowling the ninth over of the match, Varun came round the wicket and Head looked to go down the ground with a lofted shot. However, he miscued the shot and failed to clear the boundary as he found Shubman Gill taking the catch at long-off. Travis Head was dropped on nought by Mohammed Shami in the first over which was bowled by the India pacer himself. Head was off to a slow start on Tuesday, scoring just one run off the first 10 balls. However, he began finding the runs in the form of boundaries, but Varun struck for India right when it mattered the most. The 31-year-old hit five fours and two sixes during his knock.
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Australia had earlier won the toss and opted to bat first. At the time of writing this report, Australia were 62/3 in 10 overs with Marnus Labuschagne having joined Steve Smith in the middle. Cooper Connolly (0) was the first to depart after he was dismissed by Mohammed Shami in the third over.
Head has time and again tormented India in past tournaments. He had scored an ODI World Cup-winning century during the final of the 2023 World Cup final against India. Earlier that year, he had slammed 163 in the first innings of the World Test Championship (WTC) final against India. Head was also in explosive form with the bat in the 2024-25 Border-Gavaskar Trophy, scoring 448 runs from nine innings. He scored two centuries and one fifty in that series.
Varun Chakravarthy, on the other hand, is in fine form with the ball. He collected a five-wicket haul in the final group stage match against New Zealand, finishing with figures of 5/42. Varun wasn’t part of India’s preliminary squad for the Champions Trophy but was later included as a replacement for Yashasvi Jaiswal.
Varun made his ODI debut on February 9 during the second match against England in Cuttack. He finished with figures of 1/54 in that match. Varun had taken 14 wickets in the five-match T20I series against the same opposition.
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