Tilak Varma taken aback after South Africa star congratulates him on India debut with a video message

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Tilak Varma, who made his international debut during the first T20I against West Indies on Thursday, was in for a huge surprise after his stunning India during the first T20I against West Indies at the Brian Lara Stadium on Thursday.

The 20-year-old from Hyderabad walked in at number four and opened his account with back-to-back two sixes off Alzarri Joseph. A third six over covers also came later in the match.

Though India lost the match by four runs, the left-hand batter emerged as the leading run-scorer for India. He hit 39 runs off 22 balls. His strike rate of 177.27 was highest among the specialist batters. Arshdeep Singh scored 12 runs at a strike rate of 171.43 and was second on the list. All-rounder Axar Patel, who amassed 13 runs off 11 balls at a strike rate of 118.18, had the third-best strike rate for India on an extremely difficult batting surface.

A video posted by the official Twitter handle of the BCCI, Varma can be seen happily reacting to the video message from his Mumbai Indians teammate and South Africa star Dewald Brevis. The 20-year-old, who is yet to make his senior debut for South Africa, congratulated Varma on the behalf of the entire Brevis family.

"I hope you're very excited. I don't know if I'm more excited than you, but I just wanna say from my side and from the Brevis family congratulations on your debut. It's such a great moment for you and your family. I can just imagine how your parents and everyone must be. It's great to see you out there living your dream out, and it gave me goosebumps, that second ball and third ball. Now you always have my support and all the best for the rest of their series. I'm backing you for free. And every guy for Team India," Brevis said.

Responding to Brevis' message, Varma said: "I really loved it. It was a wonderful surprise. I was thinking about that could be my coach or my family. But the other option was Dewald Brevis, my brother. So I was really happy. And thank you so much. My brother always loved you. Yeah, I really appreciate your message. Yeah, I'll see you soon. I'm giving you a video call, brother. Thank you. Thank you so much."

Varma came into the reckoning after his stellar performances for Mumbai Indians (MI) in the last two IPL seasons. On Thursday, he made his debut ahead of Yashasvi Jaiswal. The youngster would next be seen in action on Sunday, August 6.