Mumbai Indians (MI) middle-order batter Tilak Varma was forced to retire out against LSG at the Ekana Stadium in Lucknow on April 4, Friday. The decision did not go down well with cricket experts and MI fans.
It triggered an outrage on social media, with Mumbai Indians' fans blaming Hardik Pandya for the decision. MI lost the match against LSG by 12 runs as the decision to retire out the southpaw did not work out in their favor.
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Tilak Varma Had A Nasty Hit The Previous Day: Hardik Pandya On Southpaw's Retire Out Decision
Following MI's loss to RCB at the Wankhede Stadium on Monday, Hardik Pandya revealed the reason behind the decision. He said that Tilak survived a finger injury ahead of the match and also spoke about what the management felt about calling back the southpaw.
"Tilak was fantastic. Last game, a lot of things happened. People made a lot of things about it but people don't know that he had a very nasty hit previous day. It was a tactical call but because of the finger which he had, the coach just felt that that was a better option that someone fresh can come and do it" said Pandya on Tilak Varma.
"You can stop the batters but I don't want to be harsh on the bowlers. It was a tough track, not many options we had. (No. 3 position) The original skeleton of our team, Naman was always batting down the order. It's just that in the last game, Ro wasn't available, so we had to push someone up and someone like him has the multi-dimensional game where he can come up as well and can play in the death as well. Once Ro was back, we knew that Naman would have to come down" he further said clarifying the management's decision on the matter.
In the next match against RCB, Tilak Varma was back to his best, batting at number three. He scored 56 runs off 29 balls and tried to keep his team in the game. In the end, chasing 222 runs to win against RCB, MI could reach as far as 209 runs and lost the match by 12 runs. Krunal Pandya defended 19 runs off the final over to give RCB their third win of the season.
"Today, he was fantastic. In this sort of games, powerplays are very crucial. Couple of overs we were not able to get in the middle, that put us back in the chase. It comes down to execution in the death - we were not able to play those balls," Hardik said after the match about Tilak.
