Varun Aaron: World Cup snub fired me to perform

He's not part of the Indian squad for the ICC Cricket World Cup 2015 and the snub has fired up Varun Aaron, who picked up a career-best 6/63 for Rest of India against Karnataka in the Irani Cup match to put his side in a position of strength. The Chinnaswamy track might have been inconsistent, easing off a bit after the morning session, but Aaron was consistent throughout the day, clocking over the 140 kph mark regularly and finding the right channels consistently to help ROI assert authority over the Ranji champions.

Aaron rated this performance as the best in his First-Class career while he also mentioned that it made him feel better after missing out on a World Cup berth. "Domestic wise, I rank it as my best performance.I have been really cross with myself at not making it into the World Cup(squad) and this is the only way I could make myself feel a bit better."

Not only did he bowl with venom, Aaron also used variations to good effect. Be it slowing down the pace, varying his lengths or playing the waiting game, Aaron implemented it effectively while making sure that he seldom erred. In doing so, he kept the batsmen second-guessing all the time and intelligently dismantled a powerful batting line-up.

"I changed a few things here and there, because these guys (Karnatakabatsmen) have been doing well throughout the season. If we stuck to simple things, I doubt if it would have worked because Karun [Nair] just came back after a brilliant 300, and everybody is on a high at the moment. I think it was important for us to deliver as a team and get them all out as early as possible," explained Aaron, when asked about his modus operandi on the opening day of the Irani Cup.

Despite the greenish appearance of the track, Aaron felt that the wicket did not aid the bowlers much. However, that did not dissuade him from constantly operating around the fourth-stump line and was rewarded for his perseverance as he bagged four of his six wickets through nicks behind the stumps (three to the keeper and one to second slip). "It was important for us to deliver because we won the toss and bowled first.Though it was not a very bowler friendly wicket, but we decided that the first half is going to be very important for us, and I am glad that we cashed in on that."

While he was disappointed with his performance in the recent Test series against Australia, Aaron said he worked hard on his game and received valuable inputs from bowling great Dennis Lillee, which did wonders to his confidence. "I had a lot of free time so I spoke to Dennis Lillee and spent around a week to ten days with him in Perth. He was very helpful. A few pieces were missing and the time I spent with him did a lot of good to me. We worked on a few things on my bowling. He just remodelled a few things which are working for me now," he said.

"I am definitely more confident. Though Australia was not the best series for our team, I had come back and played three Ranji games and got a five-fer in one. But, I still felt that I was not bowling to my potential in the Ranji Trophy, and I could bowl a little better. I am happy that after putting up some hard work, I have come up with this performance," he added.

He normally gets the first crack at the batsmen, but in this game, he came on first change. When asked about that, Aaron said: "I was asked to bowl one change today. Rishi Dhawan is more of a swing bowler. Manoj said to bowl him for three overs, because once the ball gets old it's a little more difficult for him. He is a great bowler nevertheless."

When asked if there's any mental edge for a cricketer returning to the First-Class stage after playing international cricket, Aaron replied in the negative and mentioned that it actually drives the player to take up more responsibility. "There is no mental edge as such, but the fact that you are a Test player means you have more responsibility on you to deliver for your team. That makes you take that much more responsibility than usual. That's the most important thing, I would say."