Tilak Varma said he felt "really proud" after staying unbeaten to see India through a difficult chase of 181 in the second T20I against New Zealand in Christchurch. He credited conversations with India head coach Gautam Gambhir and batting coach Sitanshu Kotak for giving him the belief to finish the game.
India were 70 for 5 in the 11th over, needing 111 runs off 55 balls, with spinners Mitchell Santner and Michael Bracewell finding assistance from the used surface. Tilak, however, was determined to bat through the innings. He has now remained unbeaten in 26 T20 chases, and his team has won every one of those matches.
"At that stage I was just thinking about playing till the end," Tilak said after winning the Player-of-the-Match award for his unbeaten 51 off 26 balls. "Just before today's game, I was talking with coach Gautam sir and Sitanshu Kotak sir, and they said one thing that we all believe and the whole India believes in you. If you stay till the end, then you will win, you'll win the game for us.
"That was in my mind and I wanted to take the game as deep as possible. At the end of the day, I have done what everyone believed. So I'm really proud of myself."
Tilak first put on 42 off 25 balls for the sixth wicket with Naman Dhir, whose 17-ball 31 included three sixes and a four. After Dhir's dismissal, Tilak and fellow "Hyderabadi boy" Nitish Kumar Reddy added an unbroken 69 off just 30 balls, India's highest seventh-wicket partnership in men's T20Is.
"I was telling Naman that we'll stay till the end and especially we can go slightly slower today compared to last game," Tilak said. "I was telling Naman that we'll push hard in running between the wickets when spinners were bowling. So that's what our plan was. We have pushed hard when they were bowling, and unfortunately Naman got out in the last over of Mitchell Santner. Otherwise, I think we would have finished the game in 18th over. So yeah, the credit goes to Naman as well, the way he batted.
"But after that, Hyderabadi boys were in the play today, Nitish Reddy and myself, and we are really happy that we finished the game."
With 46 needed off the last three overs, India backed themselves to attack New Zealand's fast bowlers and eventually got home with two balls to spare. Tilak said the runs they had collected through hard running against the spinners had been equally important.
"Definitely there was a plan like that [to target the fast bowlers], but we thought that we'll put that intent. When they bowl in our arc, we'll go [for big shots]. Otherwise we wanted to just push it in the gaps and run hard. I think we got four to five twos against spinners, those eight-ten runs were really crucial. So I think that we played smartly there and later on we knew that we could hit [against] the fast bowlers.
"We needed that pace in this huge ground, so we were waiting for that, and we finished off in style."
Shreyas Iyer: 'Naman Dhir a comprehensive player'
India captain Shreyas Iyer praised Dhir's all-round contribution, particularly his batting under pressure and his work in the field. Dhir had earlier taken the catch to dismiss Glenn Phillips for 70 off 43 balls. He had also played a decisive role in the previous match, hitting an unbeaten 42 off 15 balls to seal India's highest successful chase in T20Is.
"I feel that every individual in our team is a match-winner, and today we saw an example of that," Iyer said. "Honestly speaking, when we lost consecutive wickets [in the 11th over], we thought that the game was going away from us, but Tilak and Reddy, they showed immense character and also a great cameo by Naman Dhir.
"We saw him in a couple of games back home against West Indies. He's a phenomenal bowler as well, and once you get both the parts covered in terms of batting and bowling, I think he brings in a lot of character. Also, when you see him move around in the field, he's a comprehensive player."
Iyer also credited Santner and Bracewell for keeping New Zealand in control through the middle overs, when India struggled to find boundaries.
"We wanted to cruise but they bowled well, especially Bracewell and Santner, the way they controlled the game in the middle. It wasn't easy to strike the ball but if we would have been able to pick the gaps and find boundaries, we could have easily cruised home."