Tilak — taking to the slam-bang format like a duck to water

It takes courage for any batter, let alone a youngster trying to find his feet in international cricket, to go up to his captain and ask for the position which the skipper has made his own. Not just the skipper but, until recently, also the No. 1 batter in the world in the 20-over game. Tilak Varma dared to do that. He then went out and walked the talk.

At 22, the rangy left-hander from Hyderabad became India’s second youngest Twenty20 International centurion in Centurion on November 13, giving himself a belated birthday gift. Two nights later, as if to tell anyone might have had the impudence to consider his unbeaten 107 in the third T20I against South Africa a flash in the pan, he went a few better at the Bullring in Wanderers, unconquered on 120 as a slew of records lay shattered following the Tilak-Sanju Samson show.

Tilak and Samson are now the only two Indians to boast back-to-back T20I centuries. Both completed the feat on their uber successful tour of South Africa, where Suryakumar Yadav – ah yes, the skipper who ceded his No. 3 position to Tilak – oversaw a commanding performance by his charges. Their comprehensive 3-1 victory was the perfect end to India’s T20I campaign in 2024, a year where they only lost two matches, won 24 and crowned themselves the T20 World Cup champions for the second time.

India have stacked up this near-perfect record with different personnel but the same unchanged, breezy outlook that has been their calling card for the last couple of years. A revolution that began in the early days of the Rohit Sharma-Rahul Dravid convergence as the team management has made India a team to fear; there is so much talk about the embarrassment of riches at India’s disposal and while that is the case, the fact that whoever comes in to the setup is readily embracing of the aggressive mindset is credit to the consistent messaging from the leadership group.

V.V.S. Laxman was India’s stand-in coach in South Africa with Gautam Gambhir away in Australia with the Test side. He has been a steadying influence on the young teams he has marshalled in the last three years since taking over as the National Cricket Academy boss. It’s primarily under him that the likes of Abhishek Sharma and Tilak have grown up in the T20 format internationally, and Laxman must have felt pride surging through his veins over the last ten days when India electrified fans at stadiums in South Africa and millions watching on television with their authoritative, unstoppable batting feasts (apart from the second fixture).

Already in his young career, Tilak has had his fair share of dalliances with injuries and ill-health. He had to return home from the ‘A’ tour of Bangladesh two years back with a mystery illness, and he missed the tours this year of Zimbabwe and Sri Lanka through injury. He wasn’t initially considered for the home series against Bangladesh in October-November until Shivam Dube’s unavailability threw him a lifeline. He didn’t play in any of those three games, but once he got his chances in South Africa, he pounced on them as if his cricketing life depended on it. Maybe it did, you know.

Nascent stages

India are in the nascent stages of life without Rohit and Virat Kohli in international T20s. The two stalwarts called it quits within minutes of the spectacular World Cup triumph in Bridgetown in June, but at no stage did they, or anyone else who has even cursorily followed Indian cricket in the last two or so years, wonder if the transition would be anything but smooth. Mindsets and attitudes shaped by the often maligned but massively influential Indian Premier League, India’s young guns have no fear. The T20 format mandates aggression and innovation, true, but these young batters especially have benefited from being given the freedom and the security to express themselves in a manner that best defines them by their coaches – Dravid first, and now Gambhir, with Laxman continuing as the buffer when the designated national head coach has been unavailable for one reason or the other.

Tilak was an early spot by Mumbai Indians’ robust talent scouting system following the 2020 Under-19 World Cup. The five-time champions dished out Rs 1.7 crore to acquire the uncapped but gifted teenager’s services in 2022 and the 19-year-old didn’t disappoint, amassing 397 glorious runs. When he followed that up with 343 runs at an excellent strike-rate of 164.11 the next season, he could no longer be overlooked by the national selectors.

His T20I debut came on the tour of the West Indies in August 2023 and he immediately made his presence felt with 39 (22 balls), 51 and 49 not out in his first three outings. The transition from franchise to international cricket had been seamless, characterised by a change in neither style nor thinking. He struggled thereafter for consistency, making just one half-century in his next 12 innings despite batting in the top four on nine of those occasions, but such was his franchise form and for Hyderabad in domestic cricket, not to mention the promise he possessed, that there was no danger of him slipping through the cracks despite the abundance of talent the decision-makers could cherry-pick from.

These are heady times for Indian T20 cricket, with so many options for each position and everyone who has waltzed in immediately showcasing his expertise. Because India are so much in demand, players are now enjoying a longer rope than in the past, when a couple of failures on the bounce meant a protracted stint on the sidelines. Tilak is but one of the beneficiaries of constancy in selection and clarity in thinking, and he is well on his way to proving that the faith in him isn’t misplaced.

Tall and blessed with the elegance of a left-hander that is always a thing of beauty, he is an all-round batter comfortable on both sides of the wicket, off either foot, and at home against both pace and spin. He did cop a blow to the helmet the other night in Centurion but rode the injury beautifully on his way to his first hundred, and he has shown himself to be an excellent practitioner of the pull stroke, not unlike his former MI skipper Rohit, with a swivel that would have done Caribbean past masters proud.

There is such an intense race for places in the T20I framework that Tilak knows only too well that one hundred, however breathtaking it might be, is no insurance against the bench or beyond when the full complement of players is available for selection from potentially the second half of next year. The options at the top of the order are staggering, to say the least, with Yashasvi Jaiswal and Shubman Gill primed to take their places back as openers, Abhishek and Samson lying in wait, Tilak throwing his hat in the ring and Suryakumar in the unenviable position of having to decide how to balance his penchant for and efficacy at a certain position with the larger picture of the team’s requirements.

This is the textbook definition of what the intelligent ones call a ‘happy headache’ – no matter the circumstances, when did a headache ever become happy? – and Tilak must be chuckling to himself, having queered the selection pitch further with his heroics spread over three nights and two cities some 50 kilometres apart. In only 20 T20I appearances, he has done what Kohli, an acknowledged T20 master for so long, didn’t manage in 125 games for the country – score more than one century. Tilak might not reflect on that for too long but it’s a nice stat to own, considering Kohli signed off with an incredible average of 48.69.

With a month and a half to the dawn of 2025, India’s white-ball engagements for this year are over, but that doesn’t mean Tilak will allow the grass to grow under his feet. There is so much to look forward to next year, starting with a white-ball tour by England in preparation for the 50-over Champions Trophy in February-March. Tilak’s immediate target will be to shatter the ‘T20 specialist’ tag and expand his wings to the 50-over format. He has four ODI caps and realistically will perhaps be a more visible figure in the longer limited-overs version after the Champions Trophy, but the only way he can keep himself relevant is to build on the consistency he has shown in South Africa, where he was the Player of the Series for his 280 runs (twice dismissed) in four innings.

Anyone who has watched Tilak play can’t but be impressed by his game and situational awareness, and his immense grounding in the basics that should facilitate him becoming a successful all-format player. He has played only 18 first-class matches since his Ranji Trophy debut for Hyderabad six seasons ago; on the back of five tons in 28 innings, he averages a healthy 50.16 and has showcased his versatility by changing his approach to suit the needs of the longer, more demanding format.

At some stage in the near future, India will translate plans for life after Rohit and Kohli in the five-day game too into action. Some of the others — Sarfaraz Khan, Devdutt Padikkal, even Dhruv Jurel — have stolen the early march over Tilak in that regard. That should be motivation enough for someone so young and so gifted to knuckle down and reiterate that he can be as much a red-ball asset as he already is a white-ball one.