Mahela Jayawardene: Mumbai Indians will keep changing batting line-ups to match up to certain bowling in IPL 2025

Tilak Varma, on Friday, became the fourth batter to be retired out in an Indian Premier League innings during Mumbai Indians’ (MI) chase against Lucknow Super Giants. MI’s head coach Mahela Jayawardene, who had earlier called the decision ‘unfortunate but tactical’, threw more light on the matter on the eve of Hardik Pandya and Co’s match against Royal Challengers Bengaluru.

Calling it merely a taboo created by everyone, Jayawardene said: “The modern age is much more tactical and we’ll keep changing batting line-ups to match up certain bowling line-ups. So, I don’t see how different that is. As a batter, I’ve had times where you go to bat and struggle to get through and they bowl well to you… it’s a combination of that. And he (Tilak) batted very well for us in the last three games in tough situations. We’ve lost wickets early and he built those partnerships to get us to situations we needed to get to.”

READ: LSG vs MI: Tilak Varma becomes fourth player to retire out in IPL history

Tilak scored 25 off 23 deliveries before being retired out with seven balls remaining in the second innings and MI needing 24 runs to win. The left-hander came into bat at number five in the ninth over but struggled through his innings as the scoring rate went up in the 204-run chase.

Despite the substitution which saw Mitchell Santner come on, MI eventually lost the match by 12 runs.

Although the ploy had MI and Tilak fans raging on social media, Jayawardene justified the call, saying, “So that’s what his role is. The experience that he brings to the game, I still value that. He was trying but wasn’t being able to get going. So, I just felt that it was my decision to throw someone else to get those two hits and Mitch had done that in the last few games… he was in decent form. We needed two hits to get to that 15 or 20 runs in that last over. So, it had nothing to do with Tilak and I’m sure he’ll walk in here tomorrow and win the match for us. That’s who Tilak is for us and there’s a lot of value for him.”