Mumbai Indians skipper Hardik Pandya made a massive revelation about the decision to 'retire out' Tilak Varma during their IPL 2025 match against Lucknow Super Giants. The decision did not lead to a Mumbai Indians win, and it was criticised by both fans and experts. Following MI's loss against Royal Challengers Bengaluru, Hardik revealed that Tilak sustained a hit on his finger before that match and even made a comment about the chatter that existed around the team's call. "It was a run-fest. The wicket was really good. I was just talking about that to myself that again we fell short with two hits, I don't have much to say. (Was 221 par or above-par?) The way the wicket was, the bowers didn't really have much place to hide. It came down to execution."
"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."
"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," Hardik said after the match.
Mumbai Indians are in a real crisis in the initial phase of IPL 2025, having already lost 4 of the first 5 games.