Tilak Varma was in his Vroom..Vroom.. mode yesterday when he met the South African bowlers, dazzling and sometimes too hot to handle, bashing the balls out of the boundary line to shop something that he has been dreaming of all this time, a Ton in the shortest format of the game.
His maiden Ton took India to get back to the lead in the series after a devastating loss in the second T20I, making it 2-1. The final and the decisive match will have its roll on Friday, November 15, as the Wanderers Stadium awaits wonders.
The cloudy evening of Centurion had it coming: the lightning, but not from the sky but from the bat that has SS engraved on it, the one that Tilak uses.
Tilak Varma Powered India to Smash Proteas
When India was sent to bat first, they fumbled in the very first over as their newly found hero Sanju Samson tumbled into the canvas with a zero. But that is when the unsung hero of the game came onto the battlefield in his unusual No. 3 position, which was asked and bought from the captain prior to the match, as Suryakumar revealed in the presser.
“What more can I say about Tilak Varma? He (Tilak) came to my room at Gqeberha and said give me a chance at No. 3, I want to do well and I said go out there and express yourself. He asked for it and he delivered. Very happy for him and his family. Yes, he will bat at No.3 for now,” Suryakumar Yadav said during the post-match presentation (Via Hindustan Times)
Varma’s unbeaten 107 runs came from 56 balls, and that magnificent innings, as the captain’s effusive words say, cemented his place at No. 3 at least for a while.
Varma couldn’t hold his excitement, and he didn’t have to. After all, he battled himself into the talent-stacked Indian team and proved his worth.
“I cannot put my feelings into words,” Varma said. “It was my dream to hit a hundred for the country and I had been waiting for this moment for a long time. Coming back from an injury and hitting a hundred is incredible.
Even at the epitome of emotions, right after scoring his maiden Ton in T20I, the 22-year-old Hyderabad-based cricketer didn’t forget the man who backed him, and that gratitude was shown in the form of a flying kiss.
“It [the celebration] was for Surya, because he gave me this opportunity to bat at No. 3. I had told him that I was going to perform. That’s why I pointed towards him,” said the hero.
The captain reassured Tilak’s ‘earned’ position at No. 3 going forward, saying,
“I knew what he was capable of, and he did that. Going forward, he is definitely batting at No. 3. He asked for it; he delivered; he has earned it.”
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