Tilak Varma quietly slips into beast mode when he has a tricky chase to finish in T20Is. What Virat Kohli did against Pakistan in the T20 World Cup in Melbourne in 2022 is firmly embedded in the format’s folklore. Over the past year, Tilak has been building his own legacy as someone capable of conjuring similar brilliance to haul his team out of trouble.Saturday night in Christchurch, on a two-paced Hagley Oval pitch against a wily New Zealand attack, provided another example of Tilak’s unflinching temperament and supreme skill in crunch situations. Coming out to bat in the 11th over with the scoreboard reading 69/4, he crafted an unbeaten 51 off 26 balls to guide India to their 181-run target with four wickets and a ball to spare.His unbroken seventh-wicket partnership of 69 off 30 balls with Nitish Kumar Reddy (26 not out off 13) not only secured India a 2-0 lead in the five-match series but also vindicated the team management’s persistence with a capable batter at No. 8.This was a standout run chase for a simple reason. It was far removed from the run-fests of modern-day T20 cricket. It demanded skill to tackle left-arm spinner Mitchell Santner’s exceptional spell of 4/21, awareness of the large boundaries and unwavering belief when India were 112/6, with the ball still playing tricks.Naman Dhir’s threatening 17-ball 31 had kept India in contention, but after his departure, another wicket could well have settled the contest in New Zealand’s favour. Tilak’s six fours and solitary six came just when India needed them.It helped that New Zealand carried their sloppy fielding over from the opening game two days earlier. As on Thursday, another special knock from Glenn Phillips — 70 off 43 balls in the hosts’ 180/5 — was overshadowed by India’s young brigade.Most of these New Zealand players have seen India’s young T20 batters pull off outrageous feats in the IPL. Perhaps some of the home team’s nervousness in the field stemmed from those memories. Tilak, though, credited head coach Gautam Gambhir and batting coach Sitanshu Kotak.“Gautam sir and Kotak sir said that whole India believes in you and that if I bat till the end, we can win,” Tilak said after the win.The clarity with which he structures a chase is almost unnerving. Against spin, the emphasis was on finding gaps and running hard. “I was telling Naman that we will push hard when the spinners are bowling. Unfortunately, Naman got out in Mitchell’s last over. Otherwise, we could have won in the 18th,” Tilak declared.Dhir’s dismissal did little to unsettle Tilak. The plan remained the same when Reddy, the last recognised batter, walked out. They resisted the temptation to clear the ropes as they might on smaller grounds in India, instead working the gaps and running hard to turn ones into twos. The big shots could wait for the pace bowlers at the death. This generation of IPL batters is wired in such a way that no chase seems improbable until the equation demands a six off every ball, with the final over still to come. The panic button doesn’t seem to exist. Tilak and Reddy lived up to that billing. They took the game deep and, even with 46 required off the last three overs, backed themselves. Seventeen runs off the 18th over and 18 off the 19th brought the equation down to 11 off six. Reddy’s winning two off the penultimate ball completed another escape.
