Tilak Varma consoled by Mitchell Santner, MI support staff after being forced to retire by Mahela Jayawardene

If you are Tilak Varma, you have every right to feel dejected and heartbroken. Very few would blame you if are a tad miffed too. Yes, Mumbai Indians is a team that possesses one of the strongest Indian batting cores in the IPL with the likes of Rohit Sharma, Suryakumar Yadav, Hardik Pandya in their arsenal but despite this, Tilak Varma has already done enough to make space for himself if not get counted among them. Tilak Varma was replaced by Mitchell Santner

In 42 matches for MI, Tilak has accumulated 1251 runs at a strike rate of 143.14. For India, he has scored 749 runs in 25 matches at an average of nearly 50 and an impressive strike rate of 155. His form with the bat in T20Is has been so good that he holds the fourth spot in the ICC T20I rankings.

Considering all this, it was a shocking decision to retire Tilak just because he was having trouble hitting the ball as well as he would have liked to against Lucknow Super Giants on Friday. Tilak could hit just two boundaries off 23 balls when he was asked to retire by the MI think tank. The five-time champions needed 24 runs off 7 balls.

It was only the fourth time in the history of IPL that a batter was retired. The player who replaced Tilak was New Zealand all-rounder Mitchell Santner, who has an IPL strike rate of 106, a career T20I strike rate of 120 with only 29 sixes to his name. Tilak, in IPL, alone has 61 sixes.

Santner is an accomplished batter, make no mistake, but even he would agree that Tilak, despite his struggles, was better suited to take MI home with that asking rate. Perhaps that's why he patted Tilak just as he crossed him. It was, in all likelihood, Santner's attempt to console his teammate, a quality batter with a track record of winning many games for MI.

Also Read | Suryakumar Yadav protests decision to retire out Tilak Varma in MI dug out, coach Mahela Jayawardene calms him down

As Tilak slowly made his way back to the pavilion, the disappointment on his face was evident. He didn't go inside the dressing room but sat on the dugout. An MI support staff member sat beside him and kept his arm around the left-handed batter.

The mood in the MI dugout did not change much as captain Hardik Pandya, who strangely denied a single in the last over and Santner failed to hit the big shots. LSG won the match by 12 runs.

MI coach Mahela Jayawardene wanted Tilak to retire

"We needed some hits, he was not getting those. In cricket some of those days come, when you try but they don't come. Just play good cricket, I like to keep it simple. Take better calls, be smart in bowling, take chances in batting. It is a long tournament, you get a couple of wins and get into the rhythm," said Hardik, explaining the reasons behind retiring Tilak.

MI head coach Mahela Jayawardene said it was his decision as he wanted fresh legs in the last stage of the match.

"I think Tilak batted well for us when we lost that wicket and that partnership with Surya and he just wanted to get going but he just couldn't then and I waited till the last few overs hoping that because he 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 when these things happen in cricket and not nice to take him out but I had to do that, it was a tactical decision at that point," he said.

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