Tilak Varma's Fifty Pulls MI Out of Trouble After Being Down to 48-4
IPL 2023: Varma scored his third IPL fifty vs RCB on Sunday (AP Photo)
Tilak Varma has started his campaign in this year's Indian Premier League with a bang, scoring a half-century off just 32 deliveries and pulling Mumbai Indians out of the ventilator after the five-time champions were left sinking at 48-4 by their top order batters in first 9 overs. He got to the milestone with a mighty maximum against Akash Singh over deep square leg.
After Royal Challengers Bangalore's pace-battery removed Rohit Sharma, Ishan Kishan, Cameron Green and Suryakumar Yadav early, the 20-year-old Varma reassembled the innings with the debutant Nehal Wadhera, putting a 50-run stand for the fifth wicket.
The duo, especially the southpaw Varma, started the counter-attack against RCB's spinners. First, he put his foot on the accelerator against Karn Sharma and then went berserk against the two offies, Michael Bracewell and Glenn Maxwell.
However, after hitting the leggie Karn for consecutive sixers, the debutant lost his cool, holing a leg-break straight into the bucket hands of Virat Kohli at long-on. Soon, the big-man Tim David too got dismissed, while he tried hoicking Karn.
At the time of writing, MI is at 117-6 after 16 overs' of play, with Hrithik Shokeen in the middle with young Varma. The dual will be eager to take the Rohit Sharma-led unit to a respectable total.
 "Arjun Bhalla")
