Sanju, Tilak and Varun: Top 3 takeaways from India’s thumping T20I series win

The morning after, the impact of the Sanju Samson-Tilak Varma onslaught on South African bowlers in the fourth and final T20 International in Jo’burg has still left the onlookers in a daze. While two batters scoring a century in a single T20I innings is a record for India, the current world champions in the format, it also shows the Gen-X Men in Blue have now settled on a brave new template to play the shortest format.

The current year had been a phenomenal one for India in this format as they have won 24 of their 26 matches – while ending the ICC trophy jinx in the West Indies was the icing on the cake.   What’s more, the arrival of Samson, Avishek Sharma, Tilak Varma, Rinku Singh and Arshdeep Singh has created the perfect mix along with seniors like captain Suryakumar Yadav and Hardik Pandya to build the nucleus of the squad for title-defence in 2026.

Here are the top three takeaways from the just-concluded series which India won 3-1:

Sanju Samson: Apna time ayega

It has been a long wait for Sanju Samson to become a regular in the national team in any format, but it seems to be paying off now. The retirement of ‘Hitman’ Rohit Sharma after the World T20 triumph has opened up the doors for Chetta (meaning younger brother in Malayali) and he has grabbed the opportunity with both hands.

 An aggregate of 216 runs from last four matches, thanks to the two centuries against a quality South African attack, shows the kind of mental space the keeper-batter is in. He now has three centuries in last five T20I innings but more importantly, seems to show immense clarity on how he wishes to approach his innings – helped by the fact that the uncertainty about his place in the playing XI is no longer there.

 Now 30 and after captaining a star-studded IPL squad like Rajasthan Royals for years, Samson is armed with enough cricketing nousse. He now allows himself to get behind deliveries on bouncy South African wickets with a quick backfoot trigger movement and hits rising deliveries for sixes of the off side – a high risk and reward strategy. Add to this the timing he has been always blessed with and it seems Samson’s best lies ahead of him.

Tilak Varma: Making No.3 spot his own  

The 22-year-old from Hyderabad, who emerged as the Player of the Series with an aggregate of 280 runs from four innings at a strike rate of 198. 58, must be thankful to his selfless skipper Suryakumar Yadav. The back-to-back centuries which Tilak scored have come in number three position, which SKY had relinquished at the request of his Mumbai Indians junior.

The move worked like magic for Tilak, who showed he could be an asset in India’s future white ball plans with his penchant for finding gaps in the field by playing the deliveries late – not to speak of unleashing the slogs, cuts, pulls and reverse sweeps better than the average T20I batter. One could actually visualise him for the ODIs as well for his maturity to pace the innings, which goes beyond his years.

 Enter Varun Chakravarthy 2.0  

The mystery man in back. At 33 years, wrist spinner Varun Chakravarthy may be no rookie but he looks to have developed a new bag of tricks to his craft since his comeback which is forcing the rival batters to be on tenterhooks during his quota of four overs. The Tamil Nadu bowler’s 12-wicket haul in the T20I series, including a fifer in a low scoring second match, easily makes him the pick of Indian bowlers.

A former architect, Varun revealed how he honed the art of imparting more overspin to his stock off-break deliveries – allowing for more backward rotation on the ball. This not only added more bounce to his deliveries but also allowed them to dip onto the batter, making it difficult to size up the length or the turn. He has also worked on a leg cutter-like delivery that straightens after coming in initially. 

He employed these new weapons against the Proteas to great effect on tracks that weren’t tailor-made for his kind of bowling. While he has been typecast as a T20 bowler for his exploits for Kolkata Knight Riders in the IPL, TV pundit Dinesh Karthik has lobbied for Varun to get a look-in at the ICC Champions Trophy as well. Let’s wait and watch!