"Don't think India will bat any worse, got over the line by one brilliant innings" - Former England captain reflects on IND vs ENG 2025 2nd T20I

Former England captain Michael Vaughan reckons that India were poor with the bat in the second T20I played at the MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chepauk in Chennai on Saturday, January 25. He, however, hailed Tilak Varma for his brilliant knock, adding that England failed to grab their opportunities in the game.

The Men in Blue beat England by two wickets in a close contest in Chennai, which was decided with four balls to spare. Bowling first after winning the toss, India restricted the visitors to 165-9. In the chase, though, they stumbled to 126-7 before Varma (72* off 55) played a stellar innings under pressure and guided India home.

During a discussion on Cricbuzz, Vaughan criticized India's batting effort in Chennai and opined that they only got over the line due to the individual brilliance of Varma. The former England skipper said:

"He's [Varma] a wonderful player. He played the situation at hand. Picked the right ball at the right time to attack. To hold his nerve throughout the whole innings where there were a number of poor options by some of the Indian batters today. I don't think India will bat any worse than they did today. They got over the line by one individual brilliant innings.

"When I look at England, it was a massive opportunity. I don't India were quite as good as they were in the first game. They gave England a chance or two and England were just not good enough to take them," the 50-year-old added.

During the same discussion, former India left-arm pacer Zaheer Khan praised Varma. He hailed the southpaw for showing great game awareness under pressure and keeping Team India in the contest right till the end.

"When he was playing in South Africa, he had that blistering hundred. Today, the powerplay was good in many ways - scoring 59 runs, but losing three wickets. So understanding of the situation from Tilak Varma was just superb - he changed gears. Tilak Varma showed a lot of maturity to get the team home."

Varma struck four fours and five sixes in his fabulous innings on Saturday at Chepauk. The 22-year-old hit the winning runs off Jamie Overton's bowling to ensure a 2-0 lead for the Men in Blue in the five-match series.

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Tilak Varma's fantastic T20I numbers

Although these are still very early days in Varma's career, the youngster has already made a big impact as a batter who thrives under pressure. Looking at his T20I record, the southpaw has smashed 707 runs in 22 matches at an average of 58.91 and a strike rate of 156.07, with two hundreds and three fifties.