Former Indian batter Sanjay Manjrekar has likened Tilak Varma to MS Dhoni after the youngster played a match-winning knock in the second T20I against England at the MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai. India registered a thrilling two-wicket win to take a 2-0 lead in the five-match series as Varma played at the top of his game.

Varma scored an unbeaten knock of 72 runs off just 55 balls with the help of four fours and five sixes. India was on the ropes at 78-5 after 9.1 overs while chasing 166 however Varma was able to get the hosts over the line.

Varma showed great maturity in his batsmanship and took the game deep like former Indian skipper MS Dhoni.

Sanjay Manjrekar said on his YouTube Channel. “Absolutely. The confidence he has that he will be able to see India through the very end and even in this run chase, there was no panic around the 18th over. Even in the 19th over, you could see that India wasn’t getting the boundary that could take the pressure off. But he was quite happy to virtually be there till the end.”

He added, “It seems the guy who is confident and being the man who can take his team through, just like we had a legend in the past in the name of Mahendra Singh Dhoni, who had the same confidence. So, when you have a player like him, batting at No.3, he might be taking on that role, which is not such a bad thing.”

Varma has definitely grown in confidence and he has grabbed his opportunity of batting at one down with both hands. The southpaw has scored 707 runs in 22 T20Is at an impressive average of 58.92 and a blistering strike rate of 156.07.

The third T20I between India and England will be played at the Niranjan Shah Stadium, Rajkot on Tuesday.