It isn't easy to break through in Indian cricket, where competition is perhaps the fiercest in the world. With thousands of young talents vying for limited spots, many are never able to debut at all, while some only manage to play a handful of games. That’s what makes Varun Chakravarthy’s journey truly remarkable. Now regarded as one of India's best white-ball spinners, Varun’s path to the national team wasn’t a traditional one. At 33, he has only been an international cricketer for four years. Yet, today he is an integral part of India’s ODI and T20 World Cup squads—a testament to his perseverance and self-belief.

Interestingly, cricket wasn’t even his first career choice. In a candid conversation with Ravichandran Ashwin on the latter’s YouTube channel, Varun revealed that he once worked as an assistant architect after completing college. "Right after I completed college, I was working in an architectural company for one and a half years as an assistant architect. I started with around 14k a month, and it was 18k around the time I left," he said. He then explored his love for music by picking up the guitar but soon realized that passion alone wasn’t enough. “If your goal is to please others or get attention from others, it is never going to work out. I was never able to practice guitar for more than an hour,” he shared.

After quitting music, Varun started his own interior design and construction firm, which ran well for a year before being shut down due to Cyclone Vardha. "I lost all my investment. So that ended as well. I was around 24-25 then," he recalled. It was during this turbulent phase that he turned to the entertainment industry, not as an actor, but with the goal of becoming an assistant director.

From Film Sets to Cricket Fields

"Some of my friends were part of the film industry, and I started seeing a lot of movies and accompanying them to shoots to observe what was happening," Varun explained. He was present at the shooting of the Tamil film Jeeva, which was being filmed on various cricket grounds. “I went there with the intention of becoming an Assistant Director, but that didn't work out. I couldn't even make a proper pitch. Then one of the ADs asked me if I played cricket. I said, 'Only tennis-ball cricket.' So then I got to act in this movie, where I was signed as a junior artist with a salary of INR 600 per day,” he said. That experience proved invaluable at the time.

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As the shoot went on for 20 days, Varun found himself increasingly drawn to the storytelling process. "I liked the entire process. Then I started writing a few stories and scripts, but when I pitched to a few guys, I realized that I was getting the emotions right, but I wasn't able to translate them as a screenplay. I directed a few short films," he revealed. Today, as a key player in India's national team, he earns a daily allowance of USD 300 (INR 25652.78), a stunning 4200% increase from his Rs 600-per-day acting gig.