Former Indian national cricket team batsman Sanjay Manjrekar compared youngster Tilak Varma to legendary batsman-batsman MS Dhoni.
Sanjay Manjrekar made this huge comparison after Tilak Varma's sensational batting performance in the second T20I against England national cricket team at MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chepauk, Chennai.
Read also: Nitish Kumar Reddy broke down due to workload and pressure, claims Aakash Chopra as BCCI warns
Tilak Varma emerged as 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 played a stellar innings to lead his team to victory and take a 2-0 lead in the series.
Varma started his innings aggressively and took the English bowlers to the cleaners. He particularly destroyed pacer Jofra Archer as he smashed 30 runs off 9 balls.
After initially starting aggressively, Varma had to play a little cautiously in the middle overs as India lost wickets at regular intervals. Tilak Varma showed a calm approach and did not let the fall of wickets affect his game.
He took the game to the final and ended the match with a four. Tilak Varma also won the Player of the Match award for his unbeaten knock of 72 runs.
He was quite happy to be practically there till the end – Sanjay Manjrekar
Speaking to ESPNCricinfo's Timeout after the match, Manjrekar stated that Varma had immense confidence in his abilities to take India over the finish line as he did not panic even when the boundaries were not coming.
“Absolutely. The confidence he has that he can see India through to the end and even in this chase, there was no panic around the 18th,” he stated.
“Even in the 19th over, you could see that India weren't getting the boundary that could take the pressure off. But he was quite happy to be there practically till the end,” Manjrekar added.
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 used to take the game in the deep and finish the matches for the Indian national cricket team.
“It seems that the guy who is confident and is the man who can carry 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 him, batting number 3, he might take that role, which is not such a bad thing,” said Sanjay Manjrekar.
Meanwhile, former Pakistan cricketer Basit Ali praised Tilak Varma for his heroism with a cheeky remark. In a video shared on his YouTube channel, Basit Ali said that Varma started performing exceptionally since he started keeping his hair long.
“Tilak Varma (is) too good since he started having long hair. Just kidding (chuckle),” said the former Pakistan national cricket team cricketer.