Tilak Varma continues to flourish in the finisher’s role for India. He scored an unbeaten half-century to rescue the team from a difficult situation and help seal a four-wicket win in the second T20I against New Zealand at Christchurch.
The left-handed batter remained unbeaten on 51 off 26 balls as India recovered from a batting collapse that left them at 70/5. They chased down the 181-run target with a ball to spare.
Tilak was batting on 17 off 13 balls before switching gears in the 18th over by hitting two boundaries. He then attacked Nathan Smith in the penultimate over, smashing 18 runs to ease the pressure on India. That left them needing 11 off the final six balls, a target they reached comfortably.
The 23-year-old said he spoke to head coach Gautam Gambhir and batting coach Sitanshu Kotak before the match, with both backing him to finish the chase. Varma focused on batting till the end and was proud to deliver the win, which put India 2-0 up in the five-match series.
“I was just thinking about playing till the end. Before today’s game, I was talking to Gautam sir and Kotak sir – that whole India believes in you and that if I bat till the end, we can win. Really proud of myself,” Tilak said at the post-match presentation after receiving the Player of the Match award.
He credited Naman Dhir for his role in the earlier partnership, saying their plan was to push hard with running between the wickets against the spinners and bat till the end. Varma and Dhir put on 42 runs off 24 balls to get the chase on course.
“I was saying to Naman that we can stay till the end. Wicket was slower. I was telling Naman we will push hard when the spinners were bowling. Unfortunately, Naman got out in Mitchell’s (Santner) last over. Otherwise, we could have won in the 18th,” he added.
“Definitely there was a plan”
He was pleased that he and Nitish Kumar Reddy could finish the job for India.
“After that, you know, the Hyderabadi boys are in play today, Nitish Reddy and me, and we are really happy that we finished the game. Definitely there was a plan like that, but we thought that we’ll put that intent when they bowl in our arc. We’ll go. Otherwise, we want to just push it in the gaps and run hard. And we have done that.”
The pair was happy to wait for the fast bowlers’ pace before going for the big shots.
“We played smartly against spinners, and later on we know that we can hit sixes against the fast bowlers. We needed that pace in this huge ground. So, we were waiting for that, and we finished off in style.”