Tilak Varma’s coming of age steals spotlight on starry night

Royal Challengers Bangalore vs Mumbai Indians. Rohit Sharma vs Faf du Plessis, in principle, but more of Rohit Sharma vs Virat Kohli: two IPL behemoths, superstars of Indian cricket, current and former all-format Indian skippers. There is also du Plessis, Jofra Archer, Glenn Maxwell, Cameron Green in action.

If it is a 20-year-old rookie who dominates the discourse in cricketing echelons by the end of such a star-studded clash, despite hailing from the losing side, in a game where Kohli and du Plessis put up an exhibition of pure hitting to set up a no-nonsense eight-wicket win with nearly four overs to spare, then he must be a special talent. And special must he have done. 

Tilak Varma’s coming-of-age, unbeaten 84 off 46 on Sunday night (April 2), unfurled in front of a deafeningly boisterous, sold-out Chinnaswamy crowd, was that special.

Mumbai Indians are renowned jittery starters. The last they won their tournament opener was when IPL was still just a five-year-old kid. It is in its teenage now, at 16. And Mumbai continue to lose their tournament openers one after another with militaristic consistency. 

There is no rational explanation behind their starting woes. In these years, the team has undergone changes aplenty, sat at the auction table a dozen times, won an unmatched five titles, and seen unknown dilettantes join them and metamorphose into legends. They have played with different bunches, against different oppositions, in different years. But this is a jinx they just fail to break. 

Given their overwhelmingly lopsided record, Mumbai Indians and tournament openers – at least statistically – stands in the Foregone Conclusion category. Most must have given the game to their Sunday rivals RCB even before the first ball was bowled, and that is how it panned out eventually. 

In all fairness, Mumbai did not do anything remotely good enough to snap that streak either. But if a victory thought flashed in their minds even once, it was thanks to Varma’s valiance. Inserted to bat, Mumbai were reduced to 20/3 at the time of Varma’s entry. They further crumbled to 48/4 in the 9th over. At that moment, 171 was a total they had no business scoring. 

But the daring youngster in Varma had other plans. He clarified his intentions as early as the second ball he faced, when he sent Akash Deep sailing over long on for a six against the run of play: it came just two balls after Mumbai had lost skipper Rohit Sharma for an uncharacteristic 10-ball 1. 

The Royal Challengers tried to pepper him with short-of-a-length deliveries and bouncers, but Varma did not flinch. Mixing boldness and sensibility in equal measure, he pulled, slashed and jabbed them all en route to a lion-hearted half-century, answering every single question posed to him by the opponents.

Varma joined debutant Nehal Wadhera to restore sanity with a 50-run fifth-wicket alliance before combining with Arshad Khan – another debutant – in an undefeated 48-run stand, off merely 17 balls, to propel his team to a total that was nowhere in sights until even the 16th over.

"He is a very positive person, quite talented as well," Rohit told broadcaster Star Sports in the post-match presentation. "Some of the shots he played, in the first game of the season, he showed a lot of courage. That is something we spoke of - we want to be brave and courageous in the middle. We didn’t start well, and it was always a catching-up game. Hats off to Tilak to get us to a competitive total.

"It was a good pitch to bat on. We didn't bat to even half of our potential and yet got to 170. Probably 30-40 runs more would have been ideal. We were struggling to play the catch-up game but Tilak was magnificent,” Rohit added.

It was for his ability to deliver in this fashion that the Mumbai Indians had claimed Varma for INR 1.7 crore – 8.5 times his base price of INR 20 lakh – beating Sunrisers Hyderabad and Chennai Super Kings in a bidding war at the 2022 mega auction. 

Varma had immediately repaid the faith, averaging a touch over 36 with a strike rate above 130 in a 397-run season – the highest tally by a teenager in an IPL edition – to emerge as one of the biggest positives for the franchise in an otherwise forgettable season. 

From Bumrah to Pandyas, Kishan to Suryakumar, Mumbai have delivered many to the national team. Varma might as well be the next.