Kanpur: Riding on the high of his match-winning knock in the Asia Cup final against Pakistan, Tilak Varma enhanced his credentials as a quality 50-over batter with a gritty 94 in India A’s modest total of 246 against Australia A in the second List A game in Kanpur Friday.
The national selectors included flavour of the season Abhishek Sharma and Tilak as they are looking at long term one-day options at opening and middle-order.
While Abhishek was holed out off right-arm medium pacer Jack Edwards’ first delivery without troubling the scorers, Tilak stood tall amid ruins with his 122-ball knock with five fours and four sixes.
Skipper Shreyas Iyer also didn’t last long scoring only eight as India A were reduced to 17 for 3 at one stage.
However, Varma and another youngster Riyan Parag (58 off 54 balls) added 101 runs for the fourth wicket to stem the rot.
The other significant stand was the 34 for the ninth wicket between Tilak and Ravi Bishnoi, followed by 28 for the last wicket between him and Arshdeep Singh.
Tilak was the last man to be dismissed six short of what would have been a well deserved ton. For Australia A, Edwards took four wickets.
PTI
