Former Indian cricketer Sanjay Manjrekar has all praise for youngster Tilak Varma for his consistent performance and match-winning abilities, stating the same as legendary cricketer Mahendra Singh Dhoni. Tilak played a crucial knock of 72 runs, an unbeaten knock, in the second T20I against England, winning the match single-handedly by 2 wickets in the last over. The left-handed batter has been performing brilliantly in the number 3 spot after Virat Kohli’s retirement from T20I cricket.
Manjrekar sheds a light on Tilak’s performance, where he single-handedly took the responsibility of winning the match despite wickets falling on the other hand. He also said that Tilak managed to keep his calm and did not panic till the last.
Manjrekar said,
“Absolutely. The confidence he has that he will be able to see India through the very end and even in this run chase, there was no panic around the 18th over. Even in the 19th over, you could see that India wasn’t getting the boundary that could take the pressure off. But he was quite happy to virtually be there till the end.”
Further, he compared Tilak’s confidence to that of Dhoni, who is known as India’s greatest finisher of all time.
“It seems the guy who is confident and being the man who can take his team through, just like we had a legend in the past in the name of Mahendra Singh Dhoni, who had the same confidence.”
Tilak made his debut in August 2023 and has been one of the consistent performers for India in the format. On the tour against South Africa, he got a lot of success for playing at number three, scoring back-to-back centuries.
In the five-match T20I series against England, he scored 19 runs (not out) in the first T20I and played a crucial role in the second T20I, scoring 72 runs (not out), smashing four fours and five sixes.
