Mumbai: This is a tale of two Varuns – Dhawan and Chakravarthy.
One a popular Bollywood actor and the other is Team India’s mystery spinner who has been bamboozling batters from all teams in white-ball cricket.
Though they don’t look alike, some social media users found similarities between Dhawan and Chakravarthy, and hence mistook one for the other.
As Chakravarthy dismissed the dangerous Australian opener Travis Head with his second ball in the Champions Trophy semifinal earlier this week, one netizen praised the Indian bowler but used a picture of Dhawan.
A few couldn’t spot the wrong image, but most users trolled the person with funny posts and memes.
Varun Dhawan recently shared a hilarious face-swap video of himself bowling as team India’s spinner Varun Chakaravarthy and wished the Indian team all the best for the final against New Zealand. pic.twitter.com/GrZ9w5CpdG
— Jay Cricket. (@Jay_Cricket12) March 7, 2025
Bollywood meets cricket in the funniest crossover! 😂
Varun ft. Varun #ChampionsTrophy2025 #VarunChakaravarthy #VarunDhawan pic.twitter.com/nwLMdFPZjW— BlackGold✨ (@b1ackgoldd) March 7, 2025
Varun Chakaravarthy took Travis head’s wicket so Indian fans are praising Varun Dhawan on instagram, Educated people everywhere!#INDvsAUS pic.twitter.com/PAZVoyssh8
— U M A R (@Agrumpycomedian) March 4, 2025
Mystery Spinner #VarunDhawan spotted pic.twitter.com/CvA6fk3jqm
— Varun Dhawan FC (@LoyalVarunFan) March 6, 2025
Varun Chakravarthy, the man who’s helping India win, has less than 800k followers on Instagram. Meanwhile, Varun Dhawan, who never did anything for this country, has over 45 million followers. The world is a strange place. pic.twitter.com/XtBjcF1DGS
— Kabir (@Daddy_Kabirrr) March 4, 2025
The actor didn’t miss the mix-up and posted a shirtless picture on Instagram with the caption “Training season. Training with injuries.”
Chakravarthy joined in on the joke, commenting, “Well bowled bhaiya,” along with a folded hands and smiley emoji.
Dhawan’s post and Chakravarthy’s response sent fans into a frenzy over the funny ‘crossover’.
On Friday, Dhawan decided to add to the hilarious mix-up to make it even funnier. The 37-year-old Dhawan photoshopped his face onto the cricketer’s.
“Since the internet is having fun I decided to join in. All the best to the boys in blue and the other VARUN to shine bright on Sunday let’s go 🇮🇳,” Dhawan wrote, sharing a video of Chakravarthy dismissing Will Young during India’s group-stage clash against New Zealand. His wish was for Rohit Sharma and the men in blue who will face New Zealand in the final on March 9.
Dhawan’s playful response won over netizens, with many praising his sense of humour.
“So proud of you can’t wait for u to take more wickets Sunday,” wrote one fan in the comment section on Instagram.
“Varun bhai Final me 5 se jyada wicket lena (Varun take more than 5 wickets in the final),” posted another user.
One user joked on the new nickname coined by netizens – Varun the mystery bowler.