In the first T20I, India were chasing 209 and needed 75 in 7.3 overs when Tilak retired. He hit Tanveer Sangha for consecutive fours but fell on 12 off 10 balls as he attempted to attack the bowler once again.
“I wanted to take charge of their legs because we needed ten per over,” Tilak said. “So my mentality was clear: if the leg-spinner bowls, I will bowl. Against fast bowlers, Surya bhai [Suryakumar Yadav] will do the same. So in that end I wanted to attack the leg-spinner.”
However, Suryakumar’s 80 off 42 balls brought India closer before Rinku Singh finished off with an unbeaten 22 off 14 balls. Tilak also wants to finish the games, just like Rinku has been doing.
“I like to finish games,” he said. “I am learning [that] from Rinku as he has been doing it very consistently even for the Indian team. “I think in the next games I will do that.”
Tilak is also looking to “continue the same way” in this series. Also, he has “good memories” of Thiruvananthapuram. In 2019, he was part of the U-19 50-over quadrangular series played there between South Africa, Afghanistan, India A and India B.
In that series, he scored 115 runs in three games with a best of 44 not out. Two of those matches were played at the Thumba ground and the third at the Greenfield International Stadium, venue of the second T20I on Sunday.
“It was a good wicket at the time,” he recalls. “But usually Kerala’s wicket is on the slower side and spins a bit. I don’t know how it is now. We’ll take a look today and go with the flow.”
Last week, India lost to Australia in the ODI World Cup final after remaining unbeaten in the tournament until that match. But Tilak does not consider the current task as a series of revenge.
“On a bad day we lost, otherwise we had a great, fantastic World Cup,” he said. “I’m not trying to beat Australia because of that. We just want to take it game by game and stick to the basics.”