“There have been many [challenges]. Once you are not in the Indian side, people tend to write you off very easily. You need to stay in the highest level, again and again you need to keep knocking the door. Thankfully, this time it happened and hopefully I can keep continuing my good work.”

And now this international comeback.

“After IPL, I played a few tournaments and one of those was the TNPL. It’s a very good tournament, and high standard [of cricket] also,” Varun said. “That’s a place where I worked a lot, with Ash bhai [Ashwin]. We won the competition also, and that gave me the confidence here, because it was good preparation for me for this series.

“I just want to stick to the process because that’s what I have been following in the IPL also. So I don’t want to go over and beyond what’s there right now. I just want to stay in the present. That’s why I don’t want to think too much or express too much.”

On Sunday, Varun was introduced in the fifth over. Off his second delivery, Towhid Hridoy swept him in the air in the direction of debutant Nitish Kumar Reddy at deep square-leg; Reddy ran forward for the catch but lost the ball in the lights and let it go for four. Varun got Hridoy in his next over, and then Jaker Ali and Rishad Hossain, fooling the batters with his bag of tricks, but wasn’t happy about the drop.

He wasn’t going to say it, though.

“I thought it could have gone my way, but I can’t complain,” he said. “But, yeah, thankful to god.”