Duleep Trophy final: Vaibhav Suryavanshi gives Tilak Varma a taste of his own sledging

The 2026 Duleep Trophy final will be remembered for Ishan Kishan's double century and East Zone's win, but the match also produced a funny moment of sledging between Tilak Varma and Vaibhav Suryavanshi. A video of the exchange went viral.

The video shows Tilak Varma sledging Vaibhav while batting in the first innings. Later, when Tilak was batting in the second innings, Vaibhav began sledging him back. Tilak complained to the umpire, and Vaibhav replied that the same thing had happened to him in the first innings.

Both players sledged each other during the match, but there was no heated argument. After the match ended in a draw, all the players shook hands, and East Zone, who had taken the first-innings lead, were declared winners.

East Zone won the toss and chose to bat first. Vaibhav Suryavanshi and Abhimanyu Easwaran gave the team a quick start with fast scoring. Tilak tried to provoke Vaibhav, but it did not have much effect. Vaibhav played a useful innings of 44 runs off 37 balls.

On the fourth day of the match, Tilak was batting and was the only batter still at the crease. Vaibhav tried to distract him through sledging, which led Tilak to approach the umpire. Vaibhav immediately told the umpire that the same thing had happened to him in the first innings.

As for the match itself, East Zone batted for two full days in the first innings to put up a mammoth 708 runs. Captain Ishan Kishan scored 270 runs, while Kumar Kushagra also hit a century. In reply, South Zone's first innings folded for 336 runs. The first-innings lead effectively sealed East Zone's win.

East Zone then continued batting in their second innings until the opposing captain agreed to settle for a draw. East Zone eventually declared their second innings at 388/7, and the match ended in a draw.