Something rather unexpected and strange happened last night in the game between Mumbai Indians and Lucknow super Giants. Out of nowhere, young batsman, Tilak Varma was instructed by Mumbai management to “retire out”.
What this essentially means is that Tilak was asked to voluntarily step out from the innings without him getting actually out on field. This was presumably due to the fact that Tilak was struggling to hit the boundaries while required rate was climbing.
However, this decision from Mumbai Indians management was quickly ridiculed by social media folk. People are absolutely blasting into Mumbai management for retiring Tilak just to send a weaker batsman in the form of Santner.
“That was just STUPID from Hardik Pandya to retire out Tilak Varma for Santner. If you’re not taking singles, then why retire Tilak in the first place? That was just STUPID.” Sunil Gavaskar stated on this topic.
Even other former cricketers like Harbhajan Singh and Hanuman Vihari had commented against this decision.
It is a fact that Tilak was indeed struggling to score boundaries, but that does not mean he deserves to be subbed out in the 19th over just to send Santner. People are commenting that it is perhaps understandable if Tilak gets retired out for a player like Pollard. But bringing him out of the game in such a pressure situation just to bring a lower order batsman doesn’t make any sense.
Even Surya Kumar Yadav, who is one of the main players of Mumbai had a very puzzled look on his face while the management was pulling off this move. And as suspected social media had a similar reaction, as people did not understand the logic behind the same.
In the end, Mumbai anyway, ended up losing the game by margin of 12 runs.
Tags Mumbai Indians Tilak Varma