In a surprising move during their IPL 2025 clash against Lucknow Super Giants (LSG), Mumbai Indians (MI) made a strategic decision to retire out their batter Tilak Varma, despite the team needing 24 runs from the final 7 balls. Suryakumar yadav apparently was not pleased with the decision as footage from the game revealed.
Tilak, who had scored 25 runs from 23 balls, was replaced by Mitchell Santner, a left-arm spinner, with hopes of sending in a fresh batter who might hit some quick boundaries.
Tilak’s struggle to score boundaries in his innings prompted the call to retire him out. MI’s head coach Mahela Jayawardene and captain Hardik Pandya explained that, despite Tilak’s efforts, he wasn’t able to accelerate the chase. “We needed some hits, and he wasn’t able to get them,” Pandya said in the post-match presentation, referring to the decision as an obvious one.
“He (Tilak) just wanted to get going but he couldn’t,” Jayawardene said later. “(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.”
While Hardik stated it was an “obvious” call, the move seemed to confuse MI’s star batter Suryakumar Yadav, who looked bewildered upon seeing the decision. The footage shows a puzzled Suryakumar questioning with hand gestures about why Tilak was retired out. Jayawardene then proceeded to explain things to him as shown in the video.
However, the team’s leadership stepped in to clarify their reasoning, with Jayawardene further noting that the decision was made after Tilak struggled to get a boundary, and the team hoped a fresh batter might have better luck.
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Despite the bold move, Santner could only score 2 runs off 2 balls, and MI ultimately fell short of their target, finishing with 191/5 while chasing down 204 runs. This move made Tilak the fourth batter in IPL history to be retired out, joining the ranks of Ravichandran Ashwin, Atharva Taide, and Sai Sudharsan.
The decision to retire out Tilak Varma was part of a broader strategy aimed at securing quick runs in a high-pressure situation, but it ultimately didn’t lead to the desired outcome, as MI lost by 12 runs.
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