India vice-captain Tilak Varma admitted that dropping down the order from No. 3 was not easy, but he is trusting his skill enhancement and mental preparation to ace the demands of his new role.
Tilak has been batting either at No. 5 or 6 in T20Is for a while now, and, for him, it came down to working on his game constantly to come up trumps.
“It’s not that easy to change the numbers from 3 to 5 and 6. It will be slightly challenging. But I have been working on that. How can I finish the games? I have said that I love finishing the games for the country,” said Tilak after the washed-out fifth and final T20I against the West Indies at the Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru on Saturday.
“So, for me as an individual, if you see, it will be easier batting at 3. But unfortunately, now I should bat at 5 or 6 because we have got that combination at the top right now.”
From nine matches, the left-hander averages 65.66 while batting at number six, at a strike rate of 195. In 26 combined innings at 5 and 6, he averages 46 at a strike rate of 158.
But Ishan Kishan’s arrival, skipper Shreyas Iyer’s presence at No. 4 and the management’s decision to stick with the Abhishek Sharma-Sanju Samson combination at the top meant a mandatory demotion for Tilak.
The Hyderabad batter is aware of the situation.
“Kishan is batting at No. 3 now, and he is batting really brilliantly there. So, for me now, there is no option but to bat at 5 and 6 and do the job for the team.
“So, I am mentally prepared for that role. And if you see the last few games, I have won from there. So, I am pretty confident,” he added.
The 23-year-old said he has been working tirelessly in the nets to improve his range of shots and skill level to meet the challenges of batting lower down the order.
“Yeah, we should do that, otherwise, it will be tough. When you go in to bat as a finisher, if a slower one comes into your arc, you should go for six. Otherwise, if you see in T20, most of the time, if you go into that role of 5 or 6, you will get a maximum of five to six overs to bat.
“So, I have changed personally.”
The 23-year-old hoped to translate the positives from the series against the West Indies into good performances in New Zealand.
“There have been quite a few good things. Especially in the batting, every game we have scored over 200 plus. So, that’s a big positive, and that too, we haven’t got a proper all-rounder in the team. We have played both Nitish (Reddy) and (Shivam) Dubey as well. But both have done decently well.”