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Tilak Varma made his T20I debut in the first T20I of the five-match series against West Indies. The middle-order batter made an impact in the field before he came on to bat. Varma made jaws drop with a sensational catch after covering much ground to dismiss Johnson Charles.
In the eighth over, Kuldeep Yadav tossed up the googly. Charles could not pick the googly and mistimed the slog-sweep. The ball went up in the air and Varma ran 10-15 metres put in a dive and managed to hang on.
As soon as Varma completed the catch, former West Indies cricketer-turned-commentator Ian Bishop exclaimed “he covered acreage”.
Charles was dismissed for just three runs in Kuldee's first over of the match. Kuldeep did not take any more wickets but kept a lid on the scoring rate. He conceded just 20 runs from his quota of four overs.
Later in the game, Varma took another catch to dismiss Nicholas Pooran off Hardik Pandya's bowling. Pooran scored 41 runs from 34 balls including two fours and as many sixes.
After taking two catches, Varma walked in to bat at no.4 after India lost both their openers in the powerplay overs. In the sixth over, Varma took on Alzarri Joseph and smashed him for two consecutive sixes. He hit Romario Shepherd for a six and a four as well.
However, Varma missed a chance to score big on debut. He fell prey to Shepherd's slower bouncer and got caught by Shimron Hetmyer at deep backward square leg. The southpaw got out after scoring 39 runs from 22 deliveries. His knock included two fours and three sixes.
Varma made his T20I debut alongside Mukesh Kumar who also made his debut in the other two formats on the Caribbean tour. Mukesh remained wicketless on his T20I debut. The pacer conceded 24 runs from the three overs he bowled.
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