Tilak Verma Breaks Unique Record For India With This Feat During SMAT 2024

The middle-order batter for India, Tilak Verma, who recently made his debut in T20Is a year ago for the national side during the four-match series in South Africa and celebrated two successive centuries, has earned another huge feat during the ongoing Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy (SMAT) 2024 for the Hyderabad side.

Tilak Verma has also been retained by his former franchise in the Indian Premier League (IPL), Mumbai Indians, for the upcoming 2025 season of the event for a price of INR 8 crore. The left-handed batter has smashed 616 runs in 19 innings at an average of 51.33 and a strike rate of 161.25 thanks to two half-centuries and a couple of centuries.

The knocks have fired him up to the third position in the rankings of the International Cricket Council (ICC). The left-handed batter, since the retirement of Virat Kohli after the victorious campaign in the T20 World Cup 2024 in the United States of America and the West Indies, has earned the number three position in the order.

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The 22-year-old has participated in the recent SMAT 2024 tournament, where he was up against Meghalaya at the Niranjan Shah Stadium in Rajkot. Tilak Verma has been going through a purple patch in the format as he kept the onslaught going for an extended period of time.

Tilak Verma smashed the highest individual T20 score for India

During his stay at the crease, the middle-order batter hammered 14 boundaries and ten over boundaries to end up with 151 runs, which now stands as the highest individual score by an Indian batter in T20s. He broke the record of the former IPL captain, Shreyas Iyer, who drilled 147 runs in 55 balls for Mumbai against Sikkim during the 2019 SMAT in Indore.

Thanks to the superb show with the bat, Hyderabad posted a total of 248 runs for the loss of four wickets in 20 overs. The opener of the side, Tanmay Agarwal, also smacked a 55-run knock in 23 balls with the help of four boundaries and five sixes at the strike rate of 239.13.

In reply, the Meghalaya side was bundled out for 69 runs in 15.1 overs, with their opening batter ending as the highest run-scorer with 27 runs and the number three batter, Jaskirat Singh, ending with 16 runs. Aniketh Reddy picked up four wickets in his four overs, conceding 11 runs at an economy rate of 2.8.

Tilak Verma could have easily bagged a huge bag of money if he was included in the auction, but that won’t be possible now. He has been batting really consistently since later. The 280-run bilateral series against the Proteas has broken the record of Virat Kohli, who was the leading run-scorer for India in a bilateral T20I series with 231 runs against England in March 2021.

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India will be playing their next T20I at home against England as they will start their preparation for the upcoming home T20 World Cup 2026, and Tilak Verma is expected to be a vital member of the campaign.

Highest individual scores for India in T20s