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India A national cricket team won the recently concluded triangular series in Sri Lanka. In the List A match, Tilak Verma’s team defeated Sri Lanka by 66 runs. It all started with the exploits of Vaibhav Suryavanshi, who played a brilliant inning of 94 runs in 29 balls at a strike rate of over 300 in the 50 overs game.
India scored a huge score of 377 runs in the final, with captain Tilak also contributing in the middle order. The southpaw played an innings of 67 runs in 90 balls, hitting four fours and a six. After his slow innings, many fans and others have raised questions on his strike rate and also his performance.
Tilak Verma was the second highest scorer
However, Tilak Verma scored a total of 275 runs in 5 List A matches. He finished as the second-highest run-scorer in the tournament at an average of 55.00 with four half-centuries. However, some believed that he was not in full flow and criticized his performance.
After several criticisms, former India spinner Ravichandran Ashwin has come to his defense and backed the young batsman to carve out his role in the team. He has sought answers from critics on whether he is performing or not, and has asked them to let him go as he does not need to play aggressively like Suryavanshi.
Tilak Verma praised him – R Ashwin supported Tilak
Speaking on his YouTube channel, Ashwin said, “I noticed one thing about Tilak Verma’s batting. Tilak Verma used to bat and did it with a slow strike rate. I am thinking in my mind, how does he get the hit rate? How does he do all this? He performs, right?”
“Vaibhav Suryavanshi batted so fast. Tilak Verma praised him and he also made a big score. What is this? I mean, anyway, there has to be some balance.”
Ashwin criticizes haters who trolled Tilak Verma for his slow batting:
I have seen many people trolling Tilak Verma for his slow batting. I mean, how could they hate him? At least he is performing well in every match. Vaibhav Suryavanshi was batting so aggressively that Tilak… pic.twitter.com/SJbWwftvPi
– Tejash (@LoyleRohitFan) June 23, 2026
This was the first time that Tilak led the team in all formats in international cricket. He will be very proud and will have learned from his mistakes, and will learn more in the years to come. After India’s impressive win over Sri Lanka, the southpaw was happy with the team’s performance and praised everyone and pointed out that Vaibhav changed the game in the power play.
Tilak’s influence continues
After the match he said, “Yes, absolutely. Everyone has shown their true character in this tournament, especially when we lost consecutive games against Afghanistan and Sri Lanka. And from there, to win by a big margin and show that attitude on the field was tremendous.”
“(Can I ask you what the secret is?) Obviously, everyone has played domestic games in their state. So everyone has experience, and it’s just a matter of taking a moment and planning just before we come into the game. If you look at how we play in the powerplay and between 10 and 40, and again we will accelerate and again we will go ahead.”
Recently, Tilak won the Player of the Match award in the TG20 League, where he helped Medak Falcons to a thrilling three-wicket win over Warangal Warriors in the Hyderabad Cricket Association’s TG20 tournament as he scored 136* off 59 balls while chasing the target of 259. As vice-captain, he will compete against Ireland and England.