In a season of unprecedented disappointments for Mumbai Indians, Tilak has stood out as the biggest positive, both in terms of what he has provided, and what he promises to provide to MI going forward.
R Ashwin has just deceived a young left handed batter — inviting him for a big shot and castling his stumps — and turned the match around. Routine stuff, right? What is not routine though, is what has happened just before, and just after the dismissal. Ashwin had just been on the receiving end of an assault by the same left handed batter. An assault which forced him into a celebration that is generally reserved for established players or rivals. While it was a statement from the experienced pro reminding the young southpaw of who’s the boss, it was also an announcement. An announcement of the arrival of young Tilak Varma.
In a season of unprecedented disappointments for Mumbai Indians, Tilak has stood out as the biggest positive, both in terms of what he has provided, and what he promises to provide to MI going forward.
With 376 runs under his belt in 13 games at an average of 37.60 and a strike rate of 131.46, Tilak has been MI’s highest run scorer in his very first IPL season, with just one more match to go. And he’s not even 20 yet. To put things in perspective, here’s a list of players who were the highest scorers of teams which finished last in each IPL season.
Spot something? None of the players in this list other than Tilak were uncapped, and none of them were playing their first IPL season (except of course Adam Gilchrist in 2008 which was the first IPL season anyway). Doing well in a team that is constantly failing both, earns you a lot of respect among your colleagues, and is extremely difficult. And if you are an inexperienced teenager who is doing that in the most successful IPL franchise, and one of the most successful franchises in T20 cricket ever, you know that sky is the limit for you.
Tilak’s biggest strength lies in his all round game against spin. He has scored the second most runs against spin this season among all batters (till Match 66), only behind Rishabh Pant, and has been dismissed just once in 127 balls — the dismissal mentioned above. If you restrict this to just the middle overs (7–15), no one has scored more than him against spin (a decent part of Pant’s runs against spin have also come in the PP).
His average of 188 against spin is the highest in the tournament and he also has a surprisingly high strike rate of nearly 150 to go with it. Surprising because on first glance, he doesn’t look like a spin basher or a power hitter. In fact, he has hit just 18 boundaries against spin. As many as seven batters have hit more boundaries against spin than him. It’s his dot ball percentage that is eye catching.
24 batters have faced more than 80 balls against spin this season. Among them, Tilak has the lowest dot ball percentage — 18.11%. The second lowest number on this list is more than five percentage points higher — 23.77% (Deepak Hooda). He never gets bogged down, ticks the strike over better than anyone else in the league, and as soon as he spots a loose delivery, he latches on.
Consistency is one of, if not the most difficult thing to maintain in T20 cricket. More so when you are just starting out. Tilak has not only been consistent, but has also put immense value on his wicket. He’s scored more than 20 runs in 10 out of 13 innings this season. Getting him out has been an ordeal for bowlers. He’s been not out thrice and out of the 10 times where he has been dismissed, three have been run outs.
If the consistency and responsibility he has shown at this stage of his career wasn’t enough, he’s also added a mix of adaptability to it.
Tilak had scored 215 runs at an average of 35.83 and strike rate of 147.26 in the 2021/22 SMAT season, while batting at number 3 for Hyderabad. But coming into the MI side, he started off at number 4 in the absence of Suryakumar Yadav and by the time he came back, MI had dropped Tim David and brought in Dewald Brevis at 3. That pushed Tilak further down to number 5.
Now you’d not expect a player to be able to nail so many different roles, especially in the middle order in T20 cricket, and especially when he’s so inexperienced. But nail it he did, almost. He would like to improve on his strike rate when he’s batting at 5 or below, but that will come with time.
Below are the wagon wheels of his two 50+ knocks in IPL 2022. He’s got shots all round the park, from conventional sweeps to reverse sweeps, from pulls to lofted drives over the bowler and over covers. And this range will only grow. But there are some pretty visible chinks in his armor which he needs to work on.
He has been dismissed 3 times, and has an average of 13.33 and strike rate of 71.43 off the backfoot against pacers this season. In the last game vs SRH, he was dismissed off the backfoot trying to hoick a hard length ball by Umran Malik, only managing to give an easy catch to cover. He also needs to develop his power game, which given his age, will certainly get better with time.
It has not been a great season for Mumbai Indians. In fact, it might be the very first season in IPL history where they end up finishing last. But they will be hopeful for the future, for they have unearthed a gem in Tilak Varma.
Coming from humble backgrounds, Tilak, like every other Indian kid, dreamt of playing cricket for India. While most are not able to make it to their state sides despite trying for years, he made his state debut for Hyderabad when he was just 16. He also made it to the Indian U19 World Cup squad in 2020. And now, making his IPL debut for Mumbai Indians at 19 years of age, and playing a defining role for them in an otherwise forgettable campaign, you’d be forgiven for thinking that this is the plot of the latest Disney movie, whereas actually, it is the quintessential Indian dream!
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