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Mumbai Indians surprisingly retired out specialist batter Tilak Varma towards the end of their chase against Lucknow Super Giants to bring in Mitchell Santner.
Suryakumar Yadav reacts as MI retire out Tilak Varma. (Screengrab/JioHotstar)
Mumbai Indians needed 24 off 7 deliveries to beat Lucknow Super Giants in an IPL 2025 match held at the Ekana Cricket Stadium on Friday night. The five-time IPL winners had two set batters in Tilak Varma and Hardik Pandya in the middle. However, in a stunning turn of events, MI retired out Tilak – a specialist batter – and sent in Mitchell Santner whose primary role is that of a left-arm spinner.
The decision didn’t seem to sit well with MI batting star Suryakumar Yadav who at first looked confused with head coach Mahela Jayawardene explaining the reason behind.
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Tilak was batting on 25 off 23 when MI made the strategic call to have him retired out.
The move didn’t result in any significant impact as Santner managed 2 off 2 and MI lost the contest finishing at 191/5 while chasing 204.
MI captain Hardik Pandya later said it was an “obvious” decision since Tilak, despite trying his best, wasn’t able to get boundaries.
“I think that was obvious. We needed some hits, and he (Tilak) was not getting (them). As you say in cricket, one of those days when you really want to try but it does not happen,” Pandya said.
Tilak thus became the fourth batter in IPL history after Ravichandran Ashwin, Atharva Taide and Sai Sudharsan to have been retired out.
Jayawardene addressed the controversial call during an interaction with the media, echoing Pandya’s thoughts.
“He (Tilak) just wanted to get going but he couldn’t,” Jayawardene said. “(We) waited till the last few overs, hoping that because he had spent some time there so he should have been able to get that hit out of the way, but I just felt that at the end, I just needed someone fresh to go, and he was struggling.”
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