Tilak keeps adding layers to his game

It wasn't a century, not even a half-century.

- Somshuvra Laha

Tilak Varma plays a shot during the match against Zimbabwe.

(PTI)

But this 16-ball unbeaten 44 felt like something far more substantial: a reminder that Tilak Varma can flip roles without flinching.Not long ago, in the Asia Cup final, Varma channeled his resilience into a gritty 69 off 53 balls that navigated a charged up Pakistan bowling attack on a tricky surface. Zimbabwe are not Pakistan, and the circumstances too couldn't have been more different on Thursday, but there's no denying Varma unleashed a side of him that India sought for a long time.

Before Thursday, his highest score in the T20 World Cup was 25, and his strike rate a lowly 118. Tilak's journey in international cricket is still in its early chapters. Expectations arrived early though, largely fuelled by his IPL performances and fearless strokeplay. With expectations comes scrutiny. Every low score becomes a question mark; every dismissal, a debate. Only a jailbreak innings like this could have lifted the gloom.