On Friday evening at Ranchi, with the temperature dipping enough to warrant a small crowd to zip up their jackets, Tilak Varma ran his hands through his ruffled hair that’s coiffured by the hair stylist Aalim Hakim, picked up a ball from the ground, and bowled his off breaks for quite some time. He then had a short chat with the batting coach Sitanshu Kotak as he donned his pads and went in for a batting stint.
The same routine followed on Saturday afternoon, an optional nets day where he was joined by captain KL Rahul, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Ravindra Jadeja and Dhruv Jurel. Tilak was all around the nets, chatting with Kotak or the local spinners, or with his teammates like Jaiswal.
At one stage, on Saturday, two of India’s support staff members whispered something to him, and soon he was whisked away by the broadcasters to the other side of the ground, where he gave a long-ish interview to them. It remains to be seen if he plays the ODI, but there are a couple of slots open from the last ODI team of India seen in Australia.
Filling Iyer’s void
Shreyas Iyer and Axar Patel are missing, and while Jadeja will slot into Axar’s spot, the vacant spot to fill Shreyas’ absence might well come down between Ruturaj Gaekwad and Tilak. The other option is the left-hander playing instead of Nitish Reddy, the third seamer in the team after Arshdeep Singh and Harshit Rana. Rahul did say how “Ruturaj has had to wait for a chance as the team is settled,” and how “he will get his opportunity at some stage”. It could well be Tilak, who was the Player of the final in the T20 Asia Cup, who gets his chance now. Be that as it may, he is at a fascinating stage of his career.
The one thing that was missing in the Indian batting debacle in the recent Test series was some heart, jigar, apart from the most important skills. If there is one thing that’s Tilak’s calling card, it’s his braveheart temperament. Cue up the six he hit off Haris Rauf in the second ball of the final over of the Asia Cup. Ravi Shastri nailed it on air: “What a temperament. To pull off shots like this in a huge game, in a pressure game, and do it calmly and so composed… this is magnificent.”
India’s Tilak Varma bats during the Asia Cup cricket final between India and Pakistan at Dubai International Cricket Stadium, United Arab Emirates, Sunday, Sept. 28, 2025. (AP Photo)
It was quite a shot. Unlike in the 15th over, where he bowled from round the stumps and into the hitting range of the left-handed Tilak, who smashed him for a four and a six, this time Rauf had at least got his angle right. He was over the stumps, and yet, Tilak jumped all over him. It was a hard-length delivery angling away from the off stump, but Tilak stayed still, bent his back knee, fetched the ball and swung it up and over into the on-side stands. That set off Gautam Gambhir, who ferociously thumped the table in utter rage-filled glee.
It wasn’t just the stunning boundary hits that caught the eye, but what he did in the interim that really spoke about his temperament. In that pressure-cooker situation, he held the innings together, showing immense game-awareness, confidence, and guts to drag the game to the end. In between, he handled the sledging from Pakistanis with great maturity.
Story continues below this ad
In an event in Hyderabad after the Asia Cup, when he was asked about the sledging, he said he couldn’t even begin to tell what stuff was hurled at him. The world, courtesy of a viral clip, heard one episode. When the Pakistani wicketkeeper yelled out at him, ‘Yeh Mumbai nahi hai’ (This is not Mumbai, in reference to Tilak’s exploits for the Mumbai Indians in IPL), to reiterate the stakes involved, Tilak just kept quiet. And near the end, after a vital hit, he turned and glared at the player.
Exemplary temperament
It’s that temperament which enabled him to steer the team to a triumph that raises hope of his potential in the ODI format. He isn’t just a hitter. He isn’t just a finisher. He has the heart to soak up the pressure, has the game against both spin and pace, he has the nous to rotate strike with singles and twos, and possesses this admirable quality where it seems he rarely over-extends himself. It can all work in ODIs. Though one has to consider the failure of the T20 star Suryakumar Yadav in ODIs, and reign in any unbridled hype, the signs do look good.
His stylist Hakeem notes his hair as having ‘texture and bounce’. It can be said about his batting and personality, too. India needs someone with temperament and skills who can flow along serenely or up the tempo in that middle order in the absence of Shreyas Iyer. It could be Tilak Varma.
