Former India captain and selector Krishnamachari Srikkanth has slammed Tilak Varma for what he felt was selfish batting against Ireland in the recent two-T20I series in Belfast. Srikkanth accused Tilak of
showing a savior complex, saying the left-hander ‘was just playing for himself’ in the series.
Tilak’s spin game has been a huge concern for India. His numbers against the slower bowlers have been rapidly deteriorating in the IPL since 2024, and India’s lack of trust in him for that role showed at the 2026 T20 World Cup when they effectively played him as a finisher after a demotion from the middle-order.
That, combined with an off-color Axar Patel, saw the team failing to capitalise on good starts in both matches in slightly tricky conditions for batting, leading to a historic 2-0 defeat.
“You can’t play the way India did in the middle phase, especially Tilak Varma, (Shivam) Dube and Axar (Patel). All their strike rates were poor. You have to stabilise a bit and then start attacking in the middle phase. Otherwise, you’ll be finished if you fail in the middle phase,” Srikkanth said on his YouTube channel.
In the second T20I, Tilak came at 19/3, with India chasing 155. Wickets continued to tumble around him so he went into his shell and couldn’t accelerate in time to help the team avoid the narrow one-run loss.
“Tilak Varma was just playing for himself by sneaking in ones and twos. He tried to take it to the end and become the hero. He thought of winning it in the end and celebrating by lifting his jersey. These targets have to be chased down with an over to spare and not go till the end,” Srikkanth said.
The difficult issue for India is that they admire Tilak’s captaincy abilities and have already given him the vice-captaincy, making it doubly difficult to drop him.
