Tilak Varma becomes first batter to hit three consecutive hundreds in T20s

Indian batter Tilak Varma continued his dream run with the bat in the 2024 Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy (SMAT) as the southpaw smashed a brilliant 151 runs off just 67 balls for Hyderabad in the season opener against Meghalaya on Saturday, November 23.  With this, Tilak became the first batter ever (across men’s and women’s cricket) to score three back-to-back T20 centuries in the history of cricket. Before his century in the SMAT, he had scored unbeaten knocks of 107 and 120 runs in the third and fourth T20 Internationals in the recently concluded tour of South Africa earlier this month.

 

Tilak also became the first Indian male batter to score 150-plus runs in a T20 innings and the second Indian overall after Kiran Navgire’s 162 runs while playing for Nagaland in the Senior Women’s T20 Trophy in 2022 against Arunachal Pradesh.

 

Explosive innings

 

Tilak came out to bat at number three in the 2024 SMAT season opener for Hyderabad against Meghalaya in Rajkot and added 122 runs for the third wicket in just 48 balls to put his team en route to a massive total. Tilak struck the ball at a strike rate of 225.37, hitting 14 fours and 10 sixes, to take Hyderabad’s final score to 248 for 4, which is the fifth-highest score in the tournament’s history. Apart from Tilak, Hyderabad’s opener Tanmay Aggarwal also played a brilliant knock, scoring 55 runs to help Hyderabad post a daunting total on the board.

 

IPL retention

 

Tilak was one of the five players retained by the five-time IPL champions, Mumbai Indians, ahead of the IPL 2025 mega auction in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on November 24 and 25. Apart from Tilak, MI also retained Rohit Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah, Suryakumar Yadav, and skipper Hardik Pandya for the upcoming IPL season.