Mumbai: Defending champions Mumbai Indians (RCB) went down by 12 runs against Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) on Tuesday, but the silver lining was Tilak Varma, their top scorer with 56. Mumbai ended up losing the match despite his efforts to take them close to victory. In Mumbai’s previous game against Lucknow, Tilak found it difficult to lay bat on ball, and the team controversially retired him out of the innings. Well now, Mumbai captain Hardik Pandya has opened up about the incident.
In his talk post the RCB match, Hardik said of Tilak, “Tilak played really well. So much happened last match, and so many people said things about him. But that day, he had sustained an injury, unbeknownst to anyone. This was due to a technical injury to his finger. The coach thought that was the right decision and that a fresh player could do the job there.”
Hardik further spoke about Tilak’s performance against RCB, saying, “He batted really well today. The powerplay becomes vital in such games. Chasing that target, we faltered a bit between overs 10 and 25, and that really cost us the match. It’s as tough as stopping any side anywhere. It was amazing how RCB played.”
Against Lucknow in the last game, Mumbai had retired Tilak out in the 19th over while chasing 203 runs. At that stage, Tilak was batting on 25 off 23 balls without managing a single big hit. The decision to retire him out not only drew ire from several fans but also from former cricketers who slammed the move.
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