Tilak Varma made 39 in 22 balls in his debut T20I knock for India.
West Indies captain Rovman Powell won the toss and chose to bat first. For India, talented Tilak Varma and Mukesh Kumar made their T20I debuts.
The hosts had a decent innings with them losing Kyle Mayers and Johnson Charles early for single-digit scores. Brandon King made 28 runs, but the real push to the innings came from Nicholas Pooran (41) and captain Rovman Powell (48) who took the Indian bowlers to cleaners.
Though they looked like passing the 160-run mark, Indian bowlers bounced back and kept them to just 149/6 in 20 overs. Arshdeep Singh and Yuzvendra Chahal were the most successful bowlers for India with two wickets apiece.
In reply, India had a poor start as openers Shubman Gill (3) and Ishan Kishan (6) got out early. This brought out MI teammates Suryakumar Yadav and debutant Tilak Varma to the crease and the young left-hander took the international cricket like fish to water.
He didn’t waste much time and, on the 2nd, and 3rd deliveries he faced in international cricket, he hammered two beautiful sixes, both coming off Alzarri Joseph in the 6th over.
Both deliveries were shortish in length and allowed Tilak to pull the ball over the deep square leg for two sixes.
Check here:
He looked good while at his time in the middle and made 39 runs in 22 balls with 3 sixes and 2 fours. He perished trying to hit another six off Romario Shepherd and was caught by Shimron Hetmyer.