Tilak Varma and the Three Hundreds in a Row

In November and December 2024, Tilak Varma scored three hundreds in three consecutive Twenty20 innings. The first two were unbeaten centuries for India against South Africa — 107 not out from 56 balls at Centurion, then 120 not out from 47 balls at Johannesburg — and the third was 151 not out for Hyderabad in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy. No man had made three T20 centuries in a row before, in any competition, anywhere.

He was 22, and he had been picked for that South Africa series as a middle-order batter and then promoted to number three, which is the detail that makes the sequence more than a curiosity. Tilak's whole record — five Mumbai Indians seasons, 1,858 IPL runs at 35.73, an India place that has survived several rounds of selection churn — is an argument about what number three is for in the shortest format, and it runs against how most sides think about the position.

The Johannesburg innings

The 120 not out is the one worth describing, because it is where the method is clearest. India were 3 for 1 in the first over. Tilak came in and made 120 from 47 balls, with ten sixes, sharing an unbroken stand of 210 with Sanju Samson — the highest partnership for any wicket in India's T20I history. India made 283.

Two things about that are unusual for a number three. The first is that he came in with a wicket down in the first over and did not go through a settling period: the acceleration was immediate, in a phase where the conventional instruction to a number three is to steady the innings. The second is that he was not out at the end. Across the two South African hundreds he was unbeaten both times, which means he batted from the second over to the twentieth twice in a week and was never dismissed doing it.

He was named Player of the Series as India won 3-1. The two centuries made him the second Indian, after Samson, and the fifth player overall, to score consecutive T20I hundreds — before the Mushtaq Ali innings extended it to a record nobody had held.

The IPL record, which is steadier than spectacular

Season	Inns	Runs	Avg	SR	HS	50s
2022	14	397	36.1	131.0	61	2
2023	11	343	42.9	164.1	84	1
2024	13	416	41.6	149.6	65	3
2025	13	343	31.2	138.3	59	2
2026	14	359	29.9	145.9	101	2

That is five seasons between 343 and 416 runs, which is a remarkable degree of consistency for a batter aged 19 to 23, and it is also the record's main limitation. Tilak has never had a season that dominated a tournament. He arrived in 2022 as a 19-year-old and made 397 runs, which was startling at the time; four years later he was making about the same number, faster, and his average had drifted from 36.1 down to 29.9.

His maiden IPL hundred came in 2026 — 101, in his fifth season and his 65th innings. Set against the three T20 hundreds he made in a fortnight in 2024, that is an odd shape, and it says something about the difference between an international side that builds its innings around one batter and a Mumbai order in which he has always been the fourth or fifth most important batter present.

Why the position matters

The case Tilak's record actually supports is about number three, and it needs the conventional view stated first.

Most T20 sides treat number three as a shock absorber. The job is to arrive after an early wicket, restore the innings, and hand it on. The consequence is that number three is typically the slowest-scoring position in a good batting order — the batter is asked to reduce risk at precisely the moment the fielding restrictions still favour him — and sides therefore put their most orthodox player there.

Tilak's two South African innings are the counter-argument in its strongest form. Promoted to three and given no instruction to consolidate, he scored at better than two runs a ball from a position of 3 for 1 and produced the highest partnership in India's T20I history. That is not a batter absorbing a shock; it is a batter treating an early wicket as irrelevant to the plan.

Whether it generalises is a real question. Two innings is two innings, both against a South African attack missing several first-choice bowlers, on grounds where the ball travels. But India have kept him at or near three since, and his selection has been consistent through the 2026 T20 World Cup cycle in a way that the selection of several more decorated batters has not been.

The left-hander's argument

There is a structural reason Tilak has held his place that is worth naming, because it is doing more work than his figures alone.

He is a left-hander in an India top order that is otherwise heavily right-handed, and modern T20 selection places a very high value on breaking up a same-handed sequence. A left-hander at three forces the opposition to change its lines, complicates the use of an off-spinner in the middle overs, and makes the match-up planning that franchise and international sides now build their bowling around considerably harder.

That is why his record should not be read purely on runs. A batter averaging 30 at a strike rate of 146 who also solves a handedness problem and can bat anywhere from three to five is more valuable to a selector than the raw figures indicate — and it is also why he is vulnerable, because the same logic can be satisfied by any competent left-hander who happens to be in form.

What the record does not yet support

It is worth being clear about the limits, because Tilak is at the stage of a career where the reputation runs ahead of the aggregate.

He has 1,858 IPL runs from 65 innings, one hundred, ten fifties, and a career strike rate of 144.7. Those are good numbers for a 23-year-old and they are not yet the numbers of an established match-winner. His last two IPL seasons averaged under 32. He has not yet played a Test, and his first-class record has had comparatively little attention while the white-ball career has taken up the calendar.

The three consecutive hundreds are a genuine record and they are also, in the way of such records, a fortnight. What they demonstrate is a ceiling, not a level, and the honest reading of the five IPL seasons is a batter who has been reliably useful and not yet decisive.

The case for optimism, stated carefully

Two things in the record argue for him.

The first is the age curve. Tilak played five full IPL seasons before turning 24, which very few Indian batters have done, and the batters who compile 1,800 runs that young — even at a modest average — almost always have their best seasons still ahead. The comparison worth making is with the batters at Mumbai he came in behind: Suryakumar Yadav did not have his first great IPL season until he was nearly 28.

The second is that his method has already been tested at the highest level of the format and produced the best fortnight anyone has had. The Johannesburg innings is not a flat-track score by a batter having a good week; it is an innings played from 3 for 1, at two and a half runs a ball, without being dismissed, at 22.

What is missing is the middle: the seasons in which the ceiling becomes the level, and a Mumbai order that asks him to be its principal batter rather than its useful left-hander. Whether those arrive is the whole question about him, and nothing in Indian cricket guarantees a batter with his figures gets the chance.

Sources and method

IPL season and career figures are taken from official competition records and cross-checked against this site's own match dataset. The T20I centuries at Centurion and Johannesburg in November 2024, the 210-run partnership with Sanju Samson, the Player of the Series award and the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy 151 not out follow official scorecards, BCCI records and contemporary reporting. The observations about batting position and handedness are descriptive readings of published team sheets rather than computed findings, and nothing here has been derived from ball-by-ball data.