Rohit Sharma Advice Sparks Tilak Varma's Turnaround: 'Tujhe Pata Hai Teri...'

Tilak Varma has revealed that senior Mumbai Indians batter Rohit Sharma was behind his change of fortunes in IPL 2026. Varma said on Wednesday (April 22) that Rohit advised him to take 15-20 balls for himself before thinking about going on the offensive, saying it gave him much more clarity.

Varma had 43 runs in the first five matches of the season with an average of 8.60 and a strike-rate of 134.38. There was pressure on his place in the team’s 11, but he hit back with a sensational century against the Gujarat Titans in Ahmedabad on Monday, hitting 101* off just 45 balls.

“I got out early in two games, but then against RR and [RCB], we were chasing about 150 in 11 overs. I went in and batted at 4, so I didn’t have much time to play out the wicket.

I was just going from the start. Sometimes it comes my way, sometimes I get out,” Varma said in a press conference.

“I haven’t taken it too much on me that I was not in good form. I was talking especially with Rohit bhai. He was saying to me: “Tu khel le. 15-20 balls bas khel le. Tujhe pata hai teri captability kya hai. 15 balls khel le fir tu kya karega hum sab ko pata hai. Situation mat dekh, kuch mat dekh, pehle 15 balls khel le, uske baad jo hoga, baad mein dekhte hain. (You play, take your 15-20 balls, and just see them out because once you do that, everyone knows what you are capable of. We’ll see what happens after that),” he added.

Indeed, Tilak scored only 14 runs off the first 15 balls, smashing 87 off the next 30 at a strike-rate of nearly 300.

“That was in my mind – that I would just play fifteen balls. After that, I will see. When I had played those fifteen balls, I knew automatically: ‘Ab main maarunga.’ (Now I can smash it) That instinct comes. When you play that many balls, the ball starts looking good, and you understand the wicket. The basics start to work out,” he said.

Thanks to him and the bowlers, MI registered only their second win of IPL 2026. But it remains to be seen if this tactic can work out for Tilak and his franchise in the long run, especially considering how reliant this format is on good starts and regular hitting.