The former England captain said the ODI format will give his fellows some time to adapt to his variations because every ball is not an event, thereby lessening the effectiveness of Chakarvarthy against England in the three ODIs, compared to the T20Is, in which he was the top bowler with 14 wickets in just five matches at an average of 9.86.
Chakaravarthy was included in India’s ODI squad for the England ODIs on Tuesday. He is yet to play an ODI but has an outstanding List A record of 59 wickets at an exceptional average of 14.13 and an economy of 4.28 in 23 matches. He was the joint-highest wicket-taking spinner in the last season of the Vijay Hazare Trophy, India’s prime 50-over competition, with 18 wickets at a mere 12.72.
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“As far as the one-dayers are concerned, he is going to face better English batters because they get to spend more time. It is a longer format, and not every ball counts as an event. But I think it is a good decision to keep Chakravarthy,” Pietersen said to the media during a promotional event on Tuesday and was quoted by PTI.
Further, he reflected that the T20I series was ‘disappointing’ as far as England was concerned, but he felt that had Harshit Rana not been brought in as a concussion substitute for Shivam Dube in the fourth T20I, the result might have tilted in a different direction.”
“The series–from an English standpoint–was rather disappointing…I think it could have gone either way in the fourth T20, depending again, on how concussion substitution was carried out. It would have been 2-2 going to Wankhede. There would have been a lot more on the line of the game. But that didn’t happen.”
Rana replaced the injured Dube under the concussion sub rule, which allows ‘like-for-like’ replacements. Rana took 3 wickets for 33 runs as India eked out a narrow series-defining win to go 3-1 up, while Dube recovered in time for the final T20I and snapped 2 wickets himself.
England captain Jos Buttler earlier said that they disagreed with the decision of the referee, Javagal Srinath, to allow India to effect the substitution.
