After the big break, Varma focuses on immediate job

Nine years ago, a sleepy 11-year-old Tilak Varma was falling off his coach Salam Bayash’s bike on their daily 40-km journey to the Legala Cricket Academy in Lingampalli from Chandrayan Gutta in Hyderabad.

It was a fairly regular occurrence by the sound of it for the coach eventually had to convince Tilak’s electrician father Namboori Nagaraju to move closer to the academy. And then there was the not-so-small matter of finances. Tilak could barely afford bats or cricket gear growing up.

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To make this typical Indian rags-to-riches story even more cliched, Tilak was on Wednesday night included in India’s T20I squad for the upcoming series in the West Indies.

“I didn’t know about it until much later in the day,” says Tilak. “I had switched off my phone because I was playing the Duleep Trophy, but a childhood friend of mine called and told me about my selection. I found out around 8.00 pm.

“My mom and dad were literally crying when I made a video call with them. My coach too had the same reaction. It was all very emotional.”

Yashasvi Jaiswal was the other left-hander offered a maiden call-up, and the 21-year-old Mumbaikar's story arch is none too different. But Tilak, unlike Jaiswal, was not on any radar until very recently.

That comes as no surprise because he has only played seven first-class games with 409 runs to boot after making his debut in 2019. Perhaps if he hadn’t missed an entire Ranji season due to a stress injury to his muscle, he would have had a chance to slide his name into the conversation, but he wouldn’t be able to do that until he was unleashed by the Mumbai Indians in the Indian Premier League.

While he scored 397 runs in 14 games in his opening season in 2022, Tilak’s talent could only be weighed on what he would do in the following season. Luckily for him, he scored 343 runs from 11 games at a better average. Better yet, he scored at a strike rate of 164.11.

“I will always back myself in any situation. I try to be clear in my mindset because Kieron Pollard was the main guy who used to do the job for us in that situation and he always tells me to be calm and just focus on the next ball and when you keep the shape whatever you think will happen,” he says.

Tilak also benefitted from a side which has the likes of Sachin Tendulkar, Rohit Sharma and Suryakumar Yadav to glean from.

“Mostly they tell me to take care of my subconscious mind. They say that when you’re in the right frame of mind, you can’t play badly. They always tell me to visualise how I am going to bat tomorrow when I go to my room. That helps me a lot.”

Tilak claims that’s what he was trying to do the night he made the cut.

“It (selection) is a big thing but I kept it aside because I have a match to win for the South Zone,” he says earnestly. “I was just thinking about my process. I was not thinking about anything else. I was thinking about whatever matches were coming my way and I was focusing on them.”

It’s impossible to be certain of Tilak’s role or even if he will be included in the playing eleven or otherwise, but for someone who has not made the Emerging team, the news itself will nevertheless go a long way.

"Of course, I was confident (coming out to bat this morning) because I was thinking that now I am a capped player,” he laughs.

Alas. He was dismissed for 46 on the second day of South Zone’s Duleep Trophy semifinal against North Zone. He has one innings left in this game, but it can’t be easy to ignore the life-altering happenings of July 5.