Former India batting coach Sanjay Bangar was not very impressed with Mumbai Indians‘ decision to get Tilak Varma retired out in the IPL match against Lucknow Super Giants on Friday. Tilak, who came in as an Impact Player during MI’s chase, found it tough to hit boundaries and scored 25 runs off 23 balls as his team lost confidence in him and called him back in the penultimate over. However, the result didn’t go in their favour, as MI suffered a 12-run loss in Lucknow. The decision faced backlash from the fans and critics, as the batter who replaced Varma was Mitchell Santner, who doesn’t have a reputation for power-hitting in IPL. The Kiwi all-rounder also didn’t get much chance to showcase his batting ability as he faced only 2 balls out of the last seven.
Bangar felt the decision didn’t impact the game, and it might have, only if MI had made it earlier in the game to allow Santner to face a few deliveries.
“I don’t really think that it impacted the game in any way, retiring him. Had he been retired slightly earlier, that could have had an effect of how much had to be gotten in the last over or so, but what it does is that Santner got what, two bowls to face?” Bangar told ESPNCricinfo.
The former RCB coach asserted that it wasn’t Kieron Pollard who was coming next to bat and said that the management’s decision could have dented Tilak’s confidence in his abilities.
“And maybe even Tilak would have got maybe a couple of that particular delivery. So it wasn’t a Pollard was walking in or something like that. So what you do is that you clearly are sort of putting down one of your top players and would be devastated to do that,” he added.
“Wasn’t happening for Tilak Varma”
Former MI head coach Mark Boucher said that Tilak did a good job with his 66-run stand with Suryakumar Yadav stabilising the innings, but the boundaries just didn’t happen for him, and LSG also bowled to contain him.
“Tilak actually played a decent role with his partnership with Surya. You’d expect him with his talents and not to be able to, you know, up his tempo. Obviously, it just wasn’t happening for him. I think they bowled really well at him,” he added.
However, he suggested that, batting coach Polllard will definitely have a word with Varma about what could’ve be done in the middle to up the ante.
“He maybe could have taken a couple of options, moved around the crease a bit more. I mean, that would be a conversation that Polly will probably have with him at a later stage. But yeah, I don’t think it had impact on the game,” he added.
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