Indian left-handed batter Tilak Varma, turning out for Hampshire, smashed a century on his County Championship debut against Essex at County Ground in Chelmsford on Tuesday.
Tilak built on his overnight score of 98 to bring up his sixth First-Class century off 239 balls. The 22-year-old has scored three tons for Hyderabad in the Ranji Trophy, one for India A against New Zealand A and another in the Duleep Trophy last year.
Though he made his First-Class debut in 2019, all six of Tilak’s multi-day cricket centuries have come in the last three years (since September 2022).
The Mumbai Indians star is coming off a lukewarm Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 campaign, where he only managed 343 runs in 13 innings at an average of 31.8 and strike rate of 138.30, and struck only two fifties.