&imwidth=800&imheight=600&format=webp&quality=medium "'I promised Gautam & Kotak Sir that...': Tilak Varma opens up on match-winning mindset against NZ")
Indian batter Tilak Varma admitted that the large ground and slow pitch made big shots difficult against New Zealand in the second T20I, but he stuck to his plan of taking the game deep, as promised to head coach Gautam Gambhir and batting coach Sitanshu Kotak. India were struggling at 69/4 in the 11th over when Tilak came to the crease and the situation worsened as they lost another wicket at 70/5. The 23-year-old started slowly, scoring just 10 runs off his first nine balls before increasing his scoring rate later in the innings.
“I think the wicket was really challenging today. Especially on a big ground; the pitch was on the slower side. When they bowled bouncers, they came on really quickly,” Tilak said in an interaction with Nitish Kumar Reddy released by BCCI.
“So it wasn’t easy to hit sixes whenever you wanted to. Honestly, if you look at the first game, it was easy to hit sixes. We want to show our fitness level, our core work, in the game in those twos, singles, running hard.”
“When Naman was batting, I also wanted to go for the big shots, but I had promised myself to Gautam sir and Kotak sir that I would take the game deep from the next game onwards,” he added.
Tilak and Naman Dhir were both on one run each at the end of the 11th over. However, their scoring rates soon changed and three overs later, Dhir had scored 30 off 15 balls, while Tilak had added just six runs through singles from his next six deliveries.
After Dhir’s dismissal, Nitish Kumar Reddy joined Tilak Varma and the duo added 69 runs to help India recover from a middle-order collapse and chase down the target of 181 runs.