In the break between the 13th and 14th overs, Shivam Dube and Tilak Varma were locked in an intense chat. Dube seemed to tell him that he will do the hitting, while Tilak stuck to his anchor-accumulator role. Tilak, the ends of his wavy hair tugging the shoulders, dusting up memories of the most celebrated finisher in his long-maned days, nodded his head like an obedient student. But when his turn came to bat, he let his instincts guide him.
The first ball he faced was a half-volley. Not the juicy ones that could be flayed through cover. A treacherous one, flat and slow, that the batsman could spoon towards the bowler or mid-off. It seemed to be Rauf’s design too. Tilak conveyed an impression that he was into the stroke too early, but he was not. He paused the bat in its downward swing, waited for the ball to reach him, and with a whirr of the bottom hand, he drilled the ball past a lunging Rauf. So powerful a stroke that the fielder at long-on barely had the time to move. A single later, he regained the strike for the last ball. Rauf, angry like snubbed pacers, decided to bounce him out. Tilak just swayed from the ball’s line and nailed a pull over the backward square-leg fence.
The stroke was like a needle prick on a full-blown balloon. It deflated Pakistan’s hope. The 17-run over slashed the required equation from 64 off six overs to 47 off five overs. This was straight from the MS Dhoni manual of finishing. Dhoni seized moments to attack rather than go full throttle in every over. He analysed and dissected the bowlers, fielders, pitch, the target, his partners, the dimension of the ground, the strokes that have been working for him on that particular day. He reads the bowlers’ moves, and computes his own moves, like a seasoned Grandmaster in chess. Finishers, perhaps, are the Grandmasters of cricket. Steve Waugh called them the Pyjama Picassos for the chilling temperament, for their disposition to not skip a beat even when pursuing the impossible task, for the certainty they emanate in adversities.
India’s Tilak Varma bats during the Asia Cup cricket final between India and Pakistan at Dubai International Cricket Stadium, United Arab Emirates, Sunday, Sept. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)
Like Tilak was throughout his match-winning 53-ball 69, a treatise on the art of seizing moments. Knowing which stroke to play against which bowler, knowing which shot to essay on which pitch. He was wary of driving the spinners, because he knew one ball would stop, spin and take the edge. So he mostly looked to manoeuvre them for singles. He loves to chip down the surface and hit the spinners down the ground. But on Sunday, he decided that the sweep would be his pet tool against the spinners. He struck only one six and one four off spinners. One was a sweep; the other a slog sweep.
The first came soon after the powerplay, when he unsettled Mohammad Nawaz with a sledgehammered sweep, almost like Matthew Hayden in its stinging fury. It was a response to Nawaz spinning one back sharply into him on the previous ball. He employed the sweep again, multiple times, but as a single-taking outlet. The six came off Abrar Ahmed, the leg-spinner, in the eleventh over. It was a flighted ball, but he hunkered down and swatted it.
His innings, thus, was not a flurry of boundaries. He is a naturally boundary hitter, and he could have blazed a flurry of fours. But the situation demanded a different approach, someone to anchor, accumulate and finish the chase. So he was in no hurry. It did not bother him that he consumed dot balls in abundance (as many as 16). But he did nothing on impulse and waited for his preferred sort of deliveries and bowlers to attack. Bowlers with a bit of pace he could work with.
Like Faheem Ashraf, who bowls benign medium pace, and Rauf, quicker but no longer the feared hard-length metronome he once was. Three of his four sixes were wrought at their expense; as were two of his four. That is, he targeted two bowlers for five of his boundary shots. He spared Shaheen Afridi, because he was seaming the ball into him and had a subtler off-cutter than both Rauf and Ashraf.
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India’s Tilak Varma bats during the Asia Cup cricket final between India and Pakistan at Dubai International Cricket Stadium, United Arab Emirates, Sunday, Sept. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)
His single-minded attention was on the target, not on his own strike rate. At times, he was batting at less than a run-a-ball clip, considered shocking in the format. But he knew he could accelerate. Every time the target seemed to slip out of India’s grasp, he breathed calm with a six or four. Like in the second ball off the last over, when he clumped Rauf for another six, chopping the target down to two from four balls. The boundary count was not huge, but he sought them only when it was needed to be sought. He rarely needed to resort to big shots, so well did he manage his innings. His eventual strike rate was 130, but his career strike rate of 149 suggests that he is no slouch for boundaries. Just that, like versatile and wise players do, he premised his innings according to the circumstance.
Michael Bevan, one of the game’s greatest finishers, explained the art of finishing thus: “Quite often when you go in and your side is in trouble, the last thing on your mind is winning. You try to survive, hang around and keep an eye on the run-rate so that it’s still manageable. You need to choose the right gameplan, minimise risk and make the right decisions.” Tilak’s knock in the final perfectly conformed to this.
India coach Gautam Gambhir could be allergic to the concept of finishing. But in Tilak he has someone who emblazes the ideals of a perfect finisher. Certainly, he could perform various roles, from batting in the top three, or don the aggressor role. But finishing seems to be his calling. The shoulder-hugging mane helps in building the image.
The postTilak Varma’s match-winning innings in Asia Cup final was straight from the MS Dhoni manual of finishing | Cricket News appeared first on Indian Express
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