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The young Tilak Varma was promoted to number three by Indian captain Suryakumar Yadav during the fourth and final Twenty20 International match against South Africa, and the move produced outstanding results.
The 22-year-old, who had batted fourth in the series before, went up to Suryakumar in Gqeberha and asked to be moved up in the batting order. Yadav made the decision to drop out of third place without hesitation.
“It was actually running in my mind that there has been a time when one man has batted consistently at No. 3 and done wonders for India, so this was a perfect situation, perfect opportunity for a young guy and definitely someone like him, showing a lot of promise… and we both actually spoke to each other and said, ‘I think it’s the perfect time for someone like you to bat at number three, take that responsibility, not only now, but going forward as well,” Suryakumar was reported to have said.
He simply lived up to his words: Suryakumar Yadav
Varma accepted the responsibility by being just the fifth player in history to reach a consecutive century in T20I cricket. He led the side to a 3-1 series triumph over the Proteas with strike rates of 191.07 and 255.32 in these innings.
And he simply lived up to the rhetoric. The Indian captain continued, “I mean, the way he batted at Supersport Park and here today was incredible, and I hope he continues to do the same things, the same way, not only in T20 cricket but for all formats for India.”
Varma has now seen the fruits of his labour after overcoming obstacles such as two hand injuries that prevented him from completing jobs in Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe. He assisted the Men in Blue in reaching their second-highest T20I total of 283/1 during his time at the Wanderers.
Suryakumar brought out the difficulties in selecting players who might return, such as Shubman Gill and Yashasvi Jaiswal.
“I’m sure when they [Jaiswal, Gill] come, we’ll sit and talk about it, it will be difficult but it’s a good headache to have going forward if you have 20-25 people and you have to make a team of 10-15, so it’s quite a challenge and it’s a good thing for every team, it feels good to see this, so when those players come,
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we’ll see, we’ll talk to them, there are a lot of people, team management, selectors, BCCI, to get rid of that headache, we’ll see, there’s no problem,” Yadav stated.
India
