Over the last few years in the Indian Premier League and in international cricket, the role of a finisher has been applied to a very narrow channel.
Once the term “finisher” would apply to those to who take their team to victory and still be standing at the end of it. For most of the 90s vintage, the first name that would come to mind would be Michael Bevan. To some in India, perhaps Ajay Jadeja or Robin Singh would come to mind. But after Mahendra Singh Dhoni made his India debut in 2004, few batters around the world have embodied the role as well as him.
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By the time, Dhoni’s international career ended in 2019, the role he had very much made his own had started evolving. The demands of T20 cricket were becoming more extreme and the role was being redefined.
A finisher now means a batter (typically batting at positions 5 through 7) who specialises in accelerating the scoring rate during the death overs (usually overs 16-20) or steering a team to victory in high-pressure run chases. So much so that even when teams have an option, they save the finisher for those specific overs.
There are stringent requirement for the role but it would always feel a little odd to see Dinesh Karthik being held back when it was clear that perhaps letting him bat a few more overs would be better for the team.
But with Tilak Varma, India are perhaps attempting to give the role a broader definition once again. At 112/6 in second T20I against New Zealand, the Shreyas Iyer-led team was in big trouble.
New Zealand’s bowlers had done everything right up to that point. There was enough movement with the new ball to render the top 3 inconsequential, Mitch Santner’s 4/21 had pegged India back whenever they had looked to break free and Naman Dhir’s 31 off 17 balls was but a brief interlude.
At this point did India need a finisher in the Dhoni mould or would a more modern version do the trick?
Player-of-the-Match Varma had taken his time initially to reach 10 off 9 balls and his thoughts were very Dhoni-like: take it deep. “I was just thinking about playing till the end. Before today’s game, I was talking to Gautam (Gambhir) sir and (Sitanshu) Kotak sir — that whole India believes in you and that if I bat till the end, we can win,” said Varma after the game. “Really proud of myself.”
More like Dhoni was the manner in which Varma was prepared to pick the bowlers he wanted to attack. The spinners had been very good for the Kiwis, so India decided to hold back till pace was reintroduced into the attack.
“There was a plan like that,” said Varma. “The 4-5 doubles we got off the spinners were really crucial. We need that pace on this huge ground, and we finished off in style.”
Takes two to tango
Varma and Nitish Kumar Reddy, who came to the middle after Dhir’s fall, knew that one over could change the script. It came down to who could hold their nerve for longer. “The T20 game is always about one good over and the pressure can be put on the bowling side,” said Reddy in the post-match press conference. “We had to keep believing. And the kind of running between wickets we had and then, you know, for the good balls also we had twos, for the bad ball, we punished with fours and sixes.
“I think that’s where the game really changed. We have used the dimensions and we could see the bowlers… they were under pressure and, from nowhere… we got it to somewhere.”
Everything in T20 happens in fast-forward mode. So, things can get blurry very quickly but the best batters are the ones who know how to keep their calm in the middle.
Reddy added: “We have to keep calm at that time. You have to think well and keep an eye on everything — for example, if the bowler has already bowled a bouncer, he might go for yorkers or something like that. Just tactical things. If you keep calm, if you just keep staying at the crease, the right moment will come, then the game just changes and you will have the upper hand.”
Beyond the New Zealand series, there are lessons that India will want to learn ahead of the 2027 ODI World Cup in South Africa. The pitches for white-ball games in the Rainbow Nation have been pretty good for batting but things can change rapidly depending on overhead conditions.
Early wickets call for a different finishing approach, and based on the evidence so far, India have in Varma a batter who can combine the best of both worlds.