The Indian team is playing against the West Indies in the first T20I of the five-match series on Thursday, August 03 at Brian Lara Stadium, Tarouba, Trinidad. The India team management gave debut caps to young guns Mukesh Kumar and Tilak Varma for the first game. On the back of brilliant performances in the Indian Premier League, Tilak got roped in by the Indian team. The Hyderabad-based batter started making headlines during his first season of IPL where he collected 397 runs in 14 innings and finished as the second-highest run-scorer for Mumbai Indians.
In the last IPL, he followed up by making 343 runs from 11 innings at an average of 42.87 with one fifty. Varma is renowned for his versatile batting, be it hitting the bowlers or spending time on the crease, he does it all.
Moments after Tilak was handed over his debut cap, Twitter went berserk with a lot of reactions from fans.
Mukesh Kumar on the other hand will also be playing his first T20I game after having already featured in ODI and Test teams. The 29-year-old bowler became the second player after T. Natarajan to make his debut across all three formats on the same tour.
The first T20I game between India and West Indies will also mark Men in Blue’s 200 appearance in the shortest format of international cricket. Back in 2006, the Indian team played their first-ever T20I game against South Africa in Johannesburg under the captaincy of Virender Sehwag.
The Indian team also became the second team to take part in 200 T20I matches and stands at second in terms of matches won (127 wins). Pakistan are at the number one spot with 134 wins out of 223 played.