Former Indian national cricket batsman Sanjay Manjrekar has compared youngster Tilak Varma to the legendary tinkerer MS Dhoni.
Sanjay Manjrekar made this huge comparison after Tilak Varma’s sensational performance in the second T20I against England National Cricket Team at MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chepauk, Chennai.
Tilak Varma became a lone warrior in the Chennai T20i
22-year-old Tilak Varma was the lone warrior for the Indian national cricket team in the second T20I. He made stellar saves to guide his team to victory and take a 2-0 lead in the series.
Varma started his innings with aggression and took the English bowlers to the cleaners. In particular he destroyed Premier Pacer Jofra Archer as he smashed 30 runs off 9 balls.
After starting aggressively initially, Varma had to play a little cautiously in the medium overs as India lost wickets at regular intervals. Tilak Varma showed a calm approach and did not let the wickets fall on his game.
He took the match to the final and finished the match with four. Tilak Varma also won the man of the match award for his unbeaten knock of 72 runs.
He was quite happy to almost be there till the end – Sanjay Manjrekar
Speaking to the ESPNCRICINFO time limit after the match, Manjrekar stated that Varma had immense confidence in her abilities to take India over the finish line as she did not panic even when the boundaries were not coming.
“Absolutely. Confidence that he would be able to see India through to the very end, and even in this chase, there was no panic around 18,” he declared.
“Even in the 19th over, you could see India not getting a boundary that could shut off the pressure. But he was quite happy to be there virtually till the end,” added Manjrekar.
Mahendra Singh Dhoni had the same confidence – Sanjay Manjrekar
Sanjay Manjrekar added that the confidence shown by Tilak Varma reminded him of the legendary Ms. Dhoni, who also played the game deep and finished matches for the India National Cricket team.
“He seems to be a guy who is confident and being a man who can take over his team, just like we had a legend in the past in the name of Mahendra Singh Dhoni, who had the same confidence. So when you have a player like like a player like Him, batting in No. 3, he may have taken that role, which is not so bad,” said Sanjay Manjrekar.
Meanwhile, former Pakistan cricketer Basit Ali praised Tilak Varma for his heroic assurance with a scathing remark. In a video shared on his YouTube channel, Basit Ali said that Varma started doing extremely well since he started keeping his hair long.
“Tilak Varma [is] Too good since he started keeping his hair long. I’m kidding [chuckles]”said the former Pakistan national cricketer.
