Pressure point: Tilak and Team India show the heart for a fight

Often the best innings are those that won't dazzle you with averages or strike rates but quietly win the game because that’s the point of competitive sport.

- Somshuvra Laha

Which is why the timing of Tilak Varma’s fifty and how it enabled two crucial partnerships with Sanju Samson and Shivam Dube is peerless.

The win against Pakistan at Melbourne, 2022 was eked out in equally daunting circumstances—India were 31/4 at one point—but it was also largely engineered by Virat Kohli’s ingenuity. For this India setup to forge something similar between three batters of different styles is more admirable, given the circumstances leading up to the Asia Cup final.

Think about it. By ascertaining that there would be no fixed position after No 3—which too by the way was often tinkered with—India had thrown open their batting potential to.a range of probabilities. Bangladesh tried to give them a close run but even then it wasn’t close enough.

When Sri Lanka finally stretched them to the wire, Arshdeep Singh came to the fore. More significantly, India hadn't chased in both these matches. The last time they did, against Pakistan, Abhishek Sharma’s 39-ball 74 had reduced it to a no contest. So essentially, India were in new territory on Sunday, losing Abhishek cheaply, snailing to just 36 in the Powerplay.