India white-ball star goes to stumps on 98 not out with Essex’s total set to be comfortably overhauled
ECB Reporters Network supported by Rothesay 23-Jun-2025Tilak Varma demonstrated on his Hampshire debut that he is not just a big-hitting white-ball tyro, constructing a patient, unbeaten 98 in the Rothesay County Championship in windswept Chelmsford.The 22-year-old Indian left-hand batter, starting a four-game stint on the south coast, was playing only his 19th first-class game, compared to 119 in T20 competitions, including 25 for his country. But he showed remarkable restraint with a 234-ball vigil to help Hampshire build a measured response to Essex’s first-innings 296. At close of play, they were three runs short of parity on 293 for 4.Tilak was the safe pair of hands in half-century stands with Fletcha Middleton (61) and Ben Brown (42) and one of three figures with Liam Dawson (79 not out). But he did revert to the type of pyrotechnics that have made him a hit in the IPL with two sixes off Matt Critchley, one lost over long leg and the other a vicious reverse-sweep, and a third also to long leg off Shane Snater.Earlier, Kyle Abbott completed his third five-wicket haul of the season, winkling out the last two Essex wickets in short order to finish with 5 for 26 from 19 overs. The effort kept him top of the Championship wicket-taking charts with 37.Essex were boosted by Sam Cook’s release from England duty to play his first Championship match since the beginning of May. He returned to find himself without regular new-ball sidekick Jamie Porter, absent with a calf injury, but struck twice with successive balls in his fifth over. Ali Orr was first to go, turning a delivery uppishly to midwicket, and then Nick Gubbins played down the wrong line and edged to third slip.Middleton took a shine to Snater and drove him five times in nine balls to the midwicket boundary, in the process reaching his second half-century of the season from 61 balls. But he departed straight after lunch when he hammered Simon Harmer to silly mid-on where Paul Walter took a sharp catch. The pair had put on 62.With Porter indisposed, 20-year-old fast bowler Mackenzie Jones was handed a debut. His curate’s egg of an opening spell lasted just two overs, and when he came back for three more he was smashed four times in an over by Brown to various points on the off-side boundary.Tilak reached his half-century via a sharp single that might have resulted in a run-out with a better shy at the stumps. But it was followed quickly by a fourth wicket, after a stand of 68 runs, when Brown slashed Critchley to backward point.There was no respite for the Essex bowlers, though, as Dawson was the latest to join forces with the immovable object that Tilak had become. Dawson’s seventh boundary, steering Cook to third, took him to fifty, though he was fortunate in the same over when an edge was put down in the slips.Dawson marked his reprieve by pulling Cook for six over midwicket and adding another with the same shot against Snater as Essex struggled in vain to break up the partnership.Hampshire had wrapped up Essex’s first innings in 16 balls at the start of the day. Abbott had Cook playing no shot to a ball that swung back in and bowled him. In his next over, Snater went for glory in search of the boundary that would have claimed a second batting point, but slashed wildly at a wider delivery and was caught spectacularly on the slide at backward point.
