When he fell on Wednesday afternoon, caught and bowled by off-spinner Kounain Quraishi one agonising run short of his ninth First Class century, it was the first time in nearly two months and six competitive innings that Tilak Varma was dismissed.

Since making 53 in the final Twenty20 International against England in Southampton on July 11, the tall left-hander’s scores, all unbeaten, read 6, 60 and 11 (in the T20Is in Harare), and match-winning efforts of 116 and 51 in the Duleep Trophy which helped South Zone make it to the final that they lost on the first innings lead to East Zone at Chepauk on Thursday.

Tilak’s 99, controlled but not with the flair and panache that characterises his batting, was dictated by circumstances. Ishan Kishan, his opposite number, had sealed the destination of the title clash over the first two days. Making the most of his luck at the toss, the little left-hander smacked 270, his highest first-class score, to muscle his team to 708. All South could hope for was to muster some respectability in reply, because that humongous tally was always going to be well beyond them. Tilak therefore put the scoreboard out of his mind, took everything else out of the equation and concentrated on batting time.

Having spent most of the 163 overs – the length of the East first innings – on the field trying to devise ways and means of curbing Kishan and Kumar Kushagra, as well as the lower-order comprising Anukul Roy, Quraishi and Mohammed Shami, Tilak must have been fried mentally. But showing no signs of the fatigue that could have been his biggest stumbling block, the 23-year-old ground out an innings of great character, spanning more than five hours during which he negotiated 210 deliveries with care, assurance and defensive authority until he finally succumbed with a deserved three-figure milestone tantalisingly within grasp.

Vocal and unabashed in his desire to play red-ball cricket for the country, this near-century was further proof that the Hyderabadi wasn’t merely paying lip service while professing his love for Test cricket. Indeed, immediately after the semifinal victory over North Zone in Bengaluru last week, Tilak went public by saying he wanted to play the final before travelling to Delhi for the T20I series against Afghanistan starting on Sunday. The end result wasn’t what he had in mind, but by putting mind over matter and knuckling down to bed in despite the impossibility of the task ahead of him, Tilak once again showcased his immense maturity and added to the already firm reputation he has established as a man of his word.

By his own admission, the endearing young man thought he’d play red-ball cricket for India before being picked for the white-ball outfits. But that’s it they say about the best laid plans of men and mice? Tilak’s maiden international outing came more than three years back, in a T20I against West Indies in Tarouba in August 2023; a month and a half later, he debuted in ODIs, against Bangladesh in the Asia Cup in Colombo. He has only played four further 50-over games, but is an established T20I hand with 59 appearances, averaging 44.45 at a strike-rate of 145.18. Just how highly he is rated by the powers that be is evidenced from the fact that when India chose to move on from the Suryakumar Yadav era despite the Mumbaikar leading the team to the World Cup crown in March, Tilak was named Shreyas Iyer’s deputy.

At some stage in the near future, Tilak will don the captain’s hat in potentially an interim capacity, before he ascends the hot-seat in his own right in due course. Tilak, the captain, is still a work in progress. That much was evident in the triangular ‘A’ series in Dambulla in June, where he led the 50-over side to the title. Tilak got into needless confrontations, which didn’t make for great viewing, but clearly, he didn’t transgress any forbidden lines. He will learn and grow and become more controlled with his aggression. He will become tactically smarter and more astute, he will become better with experience as anyone does in any field. It is clear that the selectors see in him a long-term leader, hence the vice-captaincy of the T20I team, the leadership role with the South Zone outfit and an investment that they hope will bear fruit going forward.

Tilak has done his chances of earning a Test call-up no harm at all. Despite sporadic appearances in domestic First Class cricket because of a packed calendar suffused with T20Is, meaningful and otherwise, the Duleep final is just his 25th appearance for state, zone and India-A since he first turned out for Hyderabad as a 16-year-old against Andhra in December 2018 – nearly eight years have gone by since. He has had his fair share of illnesses and injuries, as much a part and parcel of a professional sportsperson as their kitbag, but he has found a way to bounce back each time.

How committed he is to the longer version is apparent from an impressive average in excess of 55 and a stellar conversion rate – he boasts eight centuries and seven fifties from 38 innings. For someone who is a willing and able risk-taker in T20Is, whether it is at No. 3 where he has brought up both his hundreds or lower down the order, where he was shunted down midway through the World Cup, he is a picture of patience, concentration and correctness when he dons the white flannels and slips effortlessly into a diametrically opposite role.

How India are able to fit Tilak into their red-ball scheme of things will be crucial in the months ahead. In Kishan, he has a worthy rival in the quest for a spot in the Test squad. Sai Sudharsan and Washington Sundar, the former as a top-order batter and the latter as an all-rounder with off-spin as an additional string to his bow, loom as further left-handed competitors in an already left-heavy line-up punctuated by Yashasvi Jaiswal, Devdutt Padikkal, Rishabh Pant and Ravindra Jadeja. There was a time when India struggled to find more than one settled left-hander to break up the tedium of right-handers and offer a different challenge to bowlers of all ilk. Now, there is a distinct slant in the other direction in one of those inexplicables because it isn’t as if left-handers are suddenly being factory-manufactured.

But we digress. How do India’s selectors, captain Shubman Gill and head coach Gautam Gambhir fit Tilak into this logjam? Equally importantly, do they want to do so immediately? For the last year and more, they have invested heavily in Sai Sudharsan, but the Tamil Nadu left-hander will be the first to acknowledge that he hasn’t lived up to expectations. In his injury-enforced absence in Sri Lanka last month, Padikkal made a compelling case to continue at No. 3 with centuries in successive Tests on his comeback after 21 months on the sidelines. There is Dhruv Jurel who has done little wrong at No. 6. Where there is a will, there is a way, of course, but is the will there currently to find a place for Tilak?

India play two Tests in New Zealand, where of late their batting has come a cropper – of late being a bit of a stretch because India’s last Tests in the land of the Kiwi were in early 2020, just before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. In modern-day cricket, no other country perhaps examines a batter’s technique, character and strength of mind in the five-day game more than New Zealand, with its propensity for seaming tracks exploited admirably by a set of honest, hard-working but also highly skilled fast-bowling group. As if that challenge wasn’t bad enough, India are desperately searching for the full complement of 24 points that will keep their World Test Championship qualification prospects alive. Given that India’s last Test win in that country came in 2009 and they have gone winless in their last six matches, that is a tall order.

But that’s the nature of competitive sport, where nothing comes easy. Where several others might be secretly hoping to be overlooked for a challenge of this magnitude, Tilak will be desperate to get an opportunity to showcase his chops, because that’s how he is wired. He has steadfastly refrained from taking the easy route in his short but already illustrious career, and he is not going to start doing so now.

It’s easy to forget, given how permanent a fixture he is in the T20I setup with the vice-captaincy as an added bonus, that Tilak is still only 23, with an entire lifetime, so to say, ahead of him. The breezy advent of Vaibhav Sooryavanshi might make even 23 look ancient but let’s face it, the 15-year-old is a freak and not the yardstick against which others must be viewed and judged. Tilak’s volume of work in just three years at the highest level is impressive even if almost all his success has come in the high-risk 20-over game. But there is minimal to zero evidence that he won’t be at home in the longer formats, especially in Test cricket where, alongside Gill and Jaiswal, he will be one of the bulwarks of the Indian batting for a long time to come.

With someone else, it might feel prudent to point out the pitfalls of getting carried away and allowing success to go to one’s head. But from whatever little one has seen of, and interacted with, him, Tilak comes across as a grounded, humble, earthy young man driven but not consumed by an inner fire that doesn’t come to everyone. There is a short but dazzling line of fantastic batters to have come out of Hyderabad – the charismatic M.L. Jaisimha, the sinewy Mohammed Azharuddin and the exceptional V.V.S. Laxman, in some ways Azhar’s successor and in many ways not. Tilak doesn’t possess the same wristy elegance as his illustrious right-handed predecessors from the same city, but that doesn’t make him any less of a batter. And just to set the record straight, one is not comparing him with the aforementioned trio of luminaries because, hey, how can you even, at this early stage? Or any stage?

For Tilak, the future is pregnant with exciting possibilities. He needs opportunities, sure, but also quality of opportunity. How soon that comes his way remains to be seen.