Mumbai Indians captain Hardik Pandya was on the losing side once again as his side lost by 12 runs to Royal Challengers Bengaluru in a closely-fought match. Incidentally, Tilak Varma was the highest scorer for Mumbai Indians on Monday with 56 runs at a strike rate of 193.10, once again raising the question of why he was dismissed in the 19th over of their last match against Lucknow Super Giants.
Meanwhile, skipper Pandya almost anticipated the question on Tilak’s controversy in the last match as he responded during the post-match presentation saying, “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.”
“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,” the MI skipper added.
What was the controversy about?
Chasing a total of 203 runs against LSG in the previous match, Mumbai Indians had retired out Varma (25 off 23 balls) in the last ball of the 19th over as the left-hander couldn’t get a big hit over the boundary. The decision, which MI coach Mahela Jayawardene later said was his call, did not go down well with IPL fans or former cricketers, who questioned why the team brought in Mitchell Santner instead of Tilak Varma.
Notably, Varma batted at number 5 in both matches, as opposed to the number 3 position he has batted at for MI in recent years, not to mention his preferred spot in the Indian T20I team.
