Under the lights at Chennai, Tilak Varma showed maturity and game awareness to take India to their second win in this T20i series against England. With this win, India double their lead in this five match series. The hosts were made to sweat a bit this time as England posted a challenging total of 165 to chase.
England were put into bat by Suryakumar Yadav and it felt as if it was a repeat of the Eden Garden’s innings from them. Phil Salt and Ben Duckett again waddled to the pavilion early without contributing much. Butler seemed to be the only one with a grasp of the Indian conditions and again showed up with a stroke-ful 45 off 30 balls. Harry Brook’s rather comical statement about difficulty to play in the smog did not seem to hold true as he fell victim to Varun Chakravarthy in a similar fashion.
Down the order there were fleeting signs from everyone especially Jamie Smith and Brydon Carse, who pushed the visitors to a par total. The wickets were shared between the Indian bowlers, with Axar Patel and Chakravarthy posting a couple of wickets each. The pitch on the night was an even one with scope for both bowlers and batters to exploit each other’s weaknesses. With a total of 165 at Chennai, the chase looked to be a tiny bit more difficult than the one India had to in Kolkata.
India’s innings took off at a frantic pace as usual with Abhishek Sharma continuing his blistering form. Sanju Samson’s form in this series looked to dip further as he did not reach double figures. None of the Indian batters stayed for a long period at the crease as England chipped away at the hosts at regular intervals. Carse had an all round performance on the night, with the bat in the first innings, picked up three wickets and caught a catch. He would have been a shout for the man of the match award if not for Tilak’s sublime innings.
It is not as if Tilak has not had high scoring games for India, but to show the temperament, the presence of mind with wickets tumbling at the other end and the skill to extract the most out of the surface was a sight to behold. He displayed clarity in his approach for different bowlers, especially Adil Rashid, as the game went down to the wire marked his coming of age in this Indian side. He finished with 72 off 55 deliveries in the end and also fittingly, hit the winning runs to ensure India’s victory.
England can feel hard done by with this loss, their performance did improve a bit from the debacle in Eden Gardens. The bowling unit will have to look at the seamers and vary their approach in the upcoming games. The Three Lions stare down the barrel, reeling at 2-0 down in the series. The batting unit will need to come to the party soon enough as England look bereft of ideas in that aspect. Butler’s problems with team selection looked to have eased but the team now will have to support their captain in his lone effort to salvage this series.