India’s veteran spinner Ravichandran Ashwin feels Tilak Varma’s game resembles a lot like Rohit Sharma. Varma has made an impressive start to his T20I career against the West Indies. While the rest of the Indian batters have looked at sea on challenging wickets, the youngster has looked apart.
The left-hander top-scored with 39 runs off just 22 balls in the opening T20I against the Windies. Furthermore, the southpaw scored 51 runs from 41 balls in the second game and played a key role in helping India post 152 runs on the board. But both of his knocks have so far went in vain as India trail by 2-0 in the series.
Meanwhile, the 20-year-old has impressed in his young career. The youngster has scored 740 runs in 25 IPL matches for Mumbai Indians at an average of 38.95 and a blistering strike rate of 144.53 while playing under the captaincy of Rohit Sharma.
“They will find the answer later as they will have all the other shots. Pull shot is something they will develop. But his game looks like has a natural pull shot and sends the ball outside the boundary rope like an Australian,” Ashwin was quoted as saying on his YouTube channel.
Ashwin, who has observed Rohit Sharma from close quarters, compared Varma with the current Indian captain.
“The emergence of Tilak Varma has made everyone take notice of him. He looked in imperious touch even on that slow pitch in the first T20I. His batting style looked very unlike an Indian making his international debut. His game resembles a lot of Rohit Sharma,” Ashwin noted.
Varma is yet to make his ODI debut but Ashwin feels the youngster could be in the scheme of things for the World Cup. The left-hander has scored 1236 runs in 25 List A matches at an impressive average of 56.18.
“Will they see him (Tilak Varma) as an option in the 50-over format? But he has made everyone take notice of him with that knock”, Ashwin commented.
“We can’t really say that he is in the scheme of things when it comes to the 50-over World Cup. But he is almost there in the contingency plan. Because any selector or anyone who would have seen that knock would have gone, ‘Woah!’,” Ashwin concluded.
The third T20I of the series will be played at Providence Stadium, Guyana on Tuesday.
