When 'Ball Boy' Tilak Varma Met His Idol Suresh Raina as a Reward for Hitting Century

Rising star Tilak Varma received his maiden India call-up for the West Indies tour when he was picked up for the T20I series recently.  Tilak had a fantastic outing with the Mumbai Indians franchise during IPL 2023.

A left-handed batting allrounder, he came into the spotlight with his impressive show for MI last season. He scored 397 runs at a strike-rate of 131.

Building on that, he scored 347 runs in 11 matches whilst improving his strike rate, bringing it up to 164.11 during IPL this year.

Salam Bayash, who has been the 20-year-old’s coach since childhood, was on his way home when his phone started getting bombarded with calls.

Bayash checked and saw around 30 missed video calls from Tilak.

On returning the call, he found out that Tilak has been called up for the Indian squad for the WI T20 series.

“I was so happy I can’t tell you. I was in tears to see this kid rejoice. I will give all the credit to his hard work. He has worked day and night for this day. I am sure he will go a long way,” Bayash told The Times of India.

Tilak’s coach believes that the MI have played a pivotal role in carving his student into a fearless and well-rounded batter.

Tilak has been a Suresh Raina fan and he would watch the former India cricketer’s batting highlights, and copy his batting style.

Bayash recalls how he decided to fulfil Tilak’s dream of meeting Raina.

The coach challenged his class that if they score a century in a league competition, then he will reward them with a big gift.

The gift was that Tilak got the chance to become a ball boy in an IPL match between Sunrisers Hyderabad and Chennai Super Kings.

Bayash pulled some strings and managed to make Tilak the ball boy for the match.

However, the real gift came after the match when he was able to meet Raina. He touched his feet and took tips.

“Raina gave him some batting tips and some fielding tips too. He told him about batting postures and gave him a lot of other tips. After returning home, late that night, Tilak did not sleep and started practising those drills in the backyard of his house. His mother called me and said  – ‘Sir, he has gone mad.’ I laughed and said let him enjoy,” Bayash said.