In the popular sitcom Arrested Development, there is a running gag about how bad news is delivered. When Buster Bluth loses his left hand to a seal, the doctor reassures the family that "he is going to be alright." There is relief, briefly, before the clarification lands: "That's right. He's lost his left hand, so he's going to be all right."

It is not quite what "all right" is meant to suggest, but it fits the kind of season Varun Chakaravarthy has had. In the literal sense, all the injuries have been on the left, leaving his right side to do the heavy lifting for much of this IPL. In cricketing sense, it has been a season slightly removed from what he usually delivers.

He fractured a finger on his left hand before the tournament had even begun. Another followed, again on that same left hand, while taking Abhishek Sharma's catch in KKR's first home game of the season. And just as he began to find his rhythm after missing a couple of matches, his left side took another hit against the same opposition. A straight drive from Ishan Kishan, another left-hander, crashed into his left boot, leaving him with a toe fracture.

For a while, the information around him stayed vague, and the practice sessions concealed. "Sore foot," "niggle injury," and the usual talk of "courage" followed from the captain and coaching staff. It all sounded reassuring without quite revealing the extent of what he was going through.

That lack of clarity brought its own noise. There were questions around how he was being handled, even suggestions that the BCCI was unhappy, but those were quickly doused. Secretary Devajit Saikia said earlier this week that franchises "do take care of the injuries and the fitness of the players," with the board "monitoring" workloads through its physios, even if it cannot "interfere too much when the IPL is going on."

Amidst all that, what exactly Varun was dealing with had still not been fully spelled out. It was only on the eve of the final league match, one that KKR are somehow still alive heading into, that the detail emerged. Head coach Abhishek Nayar mentioned it almost in passing, tucked inside a longer answer praising Varun.

"Well, I think the more I say will be less," Nayar said. "If you ask most cricketers, there will be an injury here and there, but for him to go through that and start the season on a topsy-turvy curve, come back into form, have injuries.

"He's broken quite a few limbs in this tournament already. Before that, two fingers and now his toe. But I always say the toughest characters learn to go past pain and adversity, and that's what Varun Chakaravarthy is. He doesn't seem like a tough character when you speak to him but internally he's someone who's highly motivated and feels very deeply for the franchise."

In all, Varun has missed three matches so far, but even when he has played, it has not always looked pretty. Ever since he injured his toe in Hyderabad on May 3, he has limped through spells, through practice, onto and off buses. He has been restricted mostly to short third and short fine, positions that ask less of the body between deliveries, and there have been games where he has finished his four overs and been subbed out almost immediately.

That made a small moment in the home MI fixture stand out. During a strategic timeout, Varun stood with Abhishek Nayar a little away from the huddle, the head coach with an arm around him and a few pats on the back as they spoke. Varun, already bowling through a fracture, had also been in a heavy collision with Angkrish Raghuvanshi a few overs earlier and still had an over left to bowl. He went back, bowled it, and even effected a run out.

What stood out through all of this was not just that he played, but that he wanted to. Nayar made that clear, echoing what Shane Watson said after that MI match. "He's been a franchise player for us, he's been an integral part and I think he understands it," Nayar said. "So he's very emotional when it comes to this team, very emotional when it comes to everyone associated with this team and I feel that's the thought behind him actually wanting to do it and not having to force him to do it.

"I think that's a big challenge. Sometimes the players are not keen to do it but he's been keen, very keen to do it for the love that he has for the city and the franchise."

The injuries have run alongside his inconsistent returns. He arrived into this IPL a T20 World Cup winner, but that tournament had not been straightforward either, having been played largely on flatter pitches where batters stayed back and hit him through the line. The IPL began with more aggressive batters doing more of the same to him, and it took him four matches to pick his first wicket of the season. Then came a burst of ten wickets in four games and two PoTM awards.

Three of those wickets came in a match-changing spell against Rajasthan Royals in Kolkata, a game that helped turn around KKR's fortunes after six winless matches to start the season and served as a reminder of what he can still do when things align, and when there is just a little something in the pitch for the bowlers.

After that game, Varun spoke about small adjustments, like using the line outside off stump a little more while keeping his lengths and speeds unchanged. "I am very tough on myself. If I don't do well, I go and pinpoint what is not there," he said later in the post-match press conference. Perhaps, that's how he's kept going this season.

On the eve of KKR's final league match against DC, he was out there again at the Eden Gardens, being tough on himself and pushing through the pain. He began with a short run-up in the outfield before moving into a long, intense spell in the nets to Ramandeep Singh and Tejasvi Dahiya.

By 7:30 PM, he was done for the evening, like most of his KKR teammates. On his way back to the dressing room, he paused to pass on a few tips to a net bowler, shared a laugh while pointing to his toe with someone on the sidelines, and then continued walking slowly. The limp was still there, and it will most certainly be there when he takes the field on Sunday.

That's not quite what "all right" is meant to look like, but it has been enough for Varun Chakaravarthy this season.