Chennai, Jan 25: Tilak Varma’s fifty of rare brilliance helped India survive a top-order meltdown against England pacers and register a two-wicket win in the second T20I and take a 2-0 lead in the five-match series here on Saturday.
Tilak (72 not out, 55b, 4×4, 5×6) cleverly used the extreme pace of English bowlers to amass runs, and singlehandedly took India past the target, as the hosts finished the night at 166 for eight.
It was a mini classic because the left-hander hardly had constant support from the other end and the England bowlers were cock-a-hoop lot after making serious inroads.
Pacer Jofra Archer was his pet hunt of the night, slamming the Sussex man for a total of four sixes, the fourth one taking him past his fifty, as he leaked 60 runs in four overs for the wicket of Sanju Samson.
The left-hander’s inside the line six off pacer Brydon Carse over deep fine leg (3/29) too was highly impressive. But India had to walk through the panic room before Tilak’s solidity carried them home.
Earlier, Jos Buttler showed semblance of fight but other English batters didn’t follow the skipper’s suit while succumbing to Indian spinners.
Buttler (45, 30b) played some delectable shots, including a sequence of 4, 6, 4 off pacer Arshdeep Singh, who got rid of Phil Salt in the first over itself.
Salt pulled the left-arm pacer, who was earlier on the day named as the ICC Men’s T20 Player of the Year, but could not find the distance to get caught by Washington Sundar, who replaced injured Nitish Kumar Reddy in the XI, near the square leg boundary. Washington had a moment of success for himself when Ben Duckett’s reverse sweep off him fell easily into the hands of Jurel, who came in for injured Rinku Singh.
However, the pull shot continued to haunt the English batters for the rest of the night as Buttler and later Liam Livingstone perished playing that shot. Axar Patel (2/32) was the beneficiary of England batters’ adventurous intentions.
All-rounder Carse, who came in for Gus Atkinson, used the long handle to good effect, making 31 off 17 balls including three sixes but a moment of misunderstanding with Archer snapped his promising knock. (PTI)
