About three years ago, former Team India wicketkeeper Parthiv Patel was asked a question that which batsman he sees as the future of Indian cricket in the coming times.
Parthiv took a deep breath and then said, “Maybe you have not heard this name much now, but from what I see, Tilak Verma of Hyderabad has the potential, due to which he will become the star of the future.”
Parthiv Patel was then a part of the Mumbai Indians scout team (the team that finds talented players behind the scenes).
Now Parthiv has left Mumbai and has become the batting coach of Gujarat Titans, but he will be proud of his prediction on Tilak Verma.
Tilak Verma scored the first century of his career for Team India in the third T20 match played in Centurion and gave the team a decisive lead of 2-1 in the four-match series.
This made it clear that if any one team wins the series, it will be Team India and despite losing the last match, it will not return from African soil losing the series.
Shone despite difficult conditions
The story of 22-year-old Tilak Verma is similar to that of many emerging players of the current generation from small towns who do not lose courage despite going through financial difficulties.
His father was an electrician in Hyderabad who did not have enough money a decade ago to get his son private coaching.
Tilak’s childhood coach Salim Bayash recognized his talent when he saw him playing cricket with a tennis ball for the first time.
He promised his father that he does not need to worry about money for his son’s cricket.
Today the situation is such that Mumbai Indians retained veterans like Rohit Sharma, Hardik Pandya, Suryakumar Yadav and Jasprit Bumrah at a huge price for IPL 2025 and did not hesitate to spend 8 crores on Tilak Verma as well.
In the Centurion match, Team India started with losing the toss and Sanju Samson, the century-scorer opener of the first match of the series, returned without opening his account again.
In such a situation, Suryakumar Yadav took a bold decision as captain and sent Tilak Verma at number three. Tilak Verma had never batted at number three.
It is true that on the other end, fellow opener Abhishek Sharma was scoring runs at a rapid pace and Tilak showed his wisdom by scoring only 27 runs in the first 20 balls.
But after that Tilak played comfortably at every end of the wicket and hit a flurry of fours and sixes.
With the help of eight fours and seven sixes, Tilak scored an unbeaten 107 runs in just 56 balls and played the most important innings of his international career.
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It is worth noting that during the Indian innings, apart from Tilak’s century and Abhishek’s half-century, no other player even touched the 20 mark.
If India managed to beat the hosts in the last over in a close match, then the biggest contribution for this was made by ‘Man of the Match’ Tilak.
Prediction about Tilak
Parthiv Patel is not the only former player who was impressed by Tilak’s talent.
In the very first IPL season, Mumbai Indians and Team India captain Rohit Sharma also publicly said that Tilak Verma has potential.
Tilak, who has played 9 T20s, may not have played Test cricket yet and has played only four one-day matches, but during the selection for the One-Day World Cup to be held in India last year, his name was also one of the strong contenders. The reason for this was the 2023 West Indies tour.
Tilak has now been included in the players who have scored a century in T20 cricket for Team India.
His carefree style of batting might remind many fans of Rishabh Pant’s explosive batting in Test cricket.
But throughout the innings, Tilak proved that he believes in changing gears according to the situation.
Virat Kohli is a great batsman in the modern era of white ball cricket.
Playing at number three, Kohli has scored the most runs for India and since his retirement in the World Cup, there has been a discussion about which batsman will prove to be Team India’s long-distance horse at number three in this format.
Isn’t the century scored at Centurion Tilak’s first attempt to end that question?
Comparison with oneself
When Parthiv Patel was commentating in the match being played at Centurion, it seemed as if he was getting more happiness than Tilak.
It is a different matter that Parthiv never tried to show during commentary that he had made such strong predictions about this player a few years ago.
After winning the match, when Tilak was praising his captain Surya for the decision to send him at number three, the expression on his face was clear that how he managed to live up to the expectations.
Tilak should also realize that this is just a great start.
If in the coming years he keeps playing such innings in every format in difficult conditions, then he will not be compared with Kohli or Pant but with himself, who has raised great hopes of being a great batsman of the new generation.
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