Tilak Varma revealed his conversation with Hardik Pandya during his maiden century in the Indian Premier League (IPL) during the match between Mumbai Indians (MI) and Gujarat Titans (GT) at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad on Monday (April 20).
Tilak put a poor run of form behind him as he scored a 45-ball 101 to help MI end a four-match losing streak with a mammoth 99-run victory.
During Tilak’s onslaught in the slog overs against the Titans, it was images of Hardik Pandya’s animated discussions with him, which went viral on social media. The 23-year-old opened up on the incident and revealed that the MI skipper was extremely energetic, and he had to tell him to calm down.
“As everyone knows, Hardik bhai is very energetic. He was charged up and kept saying, ‘You can do it, you will do it,’ to boost me. I just asked him to calm down because I needed to stay focused, and I assured him that I would take care of the rest,” said Tilak in an interaction with Jiostar.
Tilak opened up on his century after starting the season without even crossing the 50 mark in the first five games. In fact, he had not scored more than 20 runs and had three single-digit scores to his name with just 43 runs. Tilak claimed that he focussed on spending time in the middle, which helped him regain form.
“It was very important for the team and for me. Over the last four or five games, the one thing constantly running through my head was that I hadn’t spent much time in the middle and hadn’t faced many balls, so my aim was to spend some time at the wicket and then adapt according to the team’s situation. I am grateful that it worked out that way,” Tilak stated.
Tilak’s innings was one of two halves. In the initial period, he was struggling and made just 19 runs in 22 balls. However, he made up for it with a record-breaking display as he got 81 runs in the next 23 deliveries.