The past few days have been disappointing for the Indian team and fans. The team has failed to come to terms with basic expectations of the game, let alone the benchmark set by them till 2021. The WTC final defeat post the IPL was already infuriating the fans, and now the poor performance of the team on the West Indies tour is aggravating the emotion. Almost nothing is going India's way. Fortunately for the team, there are some positives. And out of the very few positives from the tournament, the biggest one is the inclusion of Tilak Varma.

The red ball series against the Caribbean team saw the positive in form of Yashasvi Jaiswal's dream debut. And now the T20 series against 2 time T20 champions, have helped India find a dependable batter in the form of Tilak Varma. The southpaw, who has just played a couple of games is already showing a glimpse of what he wants to do. In both the matches of the shortest format, he was the lone warrior for the team cruising with the right intent and good strike rate. His debut was made even more special as he scored his first runs by hitting 2 towering sixes. By doing so, he joined the elite list of batter including Ishan Kishan and Surya Kumar Yadav to start their career with a six.

The Mumbai Indians' stalwart has made his mark in the international circuit. Highly regarded as one of the most promising talents by critics, Tilak was always considered to be a player who can add value to any team he plays for. And he is out there reaffirming the remarks made by these gentlemen. On both the occasions when he got to bat, he displayed great temperament blended with mixture of orthodox as well as innovative shots. He was keen to follow the basics of the game, and never played any rash shots. In the first match, he fell for 39 runs, but yesterday he managed to reach to his maiden half century. With this half-century he became the 2nd youngest Indian to cross 50 run mark in T20, with the first one being Rohit Sharma.

Tilak looks promising. He has the talent, he has intent, and he knows which ball to hit and which one to defend. He doesn't seem to crumble under pressure. It doesn't matter to him if there is any recognised batter next to him or not, he plays cautiously yet freely. Which is why in 2022, when Mumbai Indians had a horrid IPL season, the youngster from Hyderabad was constantly performing ,unaffected by the team's circumstances. He showed his class in his first IPL season itself. The team which boasts of international stars, had seen Tilak Varma topping run chart for their team in the last season when most of the stars failed. And similar was seen in his debut T20 series, when he didn't succumb easily to the pressure put by Caribbeans when Indian wickets fell from the other end.

The southpaw comes from a humble background, and has struggled his way to turn his dreams into reality. From a young age, he started to take right steps eventually to take the giant leap at the international level. Varma had impressed everyone with his batting in domestic circuit. He was the top scored for the previous Cooch Behar Trophy, and many other occasions in the past few years. And a gap in his domestic circuit appearance post the IPL didn't stop him to score big and well on his first tour for Men in Blue. And with him being in the side, India might just have got rid of their left handed batter crisis in the middle order which haunted the team for long.

All the experiments for the team in the West Indies tour have brutally failed. While inclusion of Tilak Varma has suddenly showed the team and fans hope. He has now set a bar for himself, which he has to follow. And with the skill set and mindset he has, it looks like he will keep on raising the bar higher. The little boy who dreamt to play for the country, has a dream to help the team win the world cup. And with all possibilities, he looks set to be a part of 2024 T20 world cup, if he continues his string of good performances. Time will tell what he has to offer. However, it looks like his time has arrived. We congratulate him for his maiden half century and wish to see him hit many more in future for Men in Blue. And we wish to see the team emerge victorious in the next match of the series.