IPL 2025: Why Did Tilak Varma Retire Against LSG? MI Head Coach Mahela Jayawardene Slams Critics With No-Nonsense Take

IPL 2025: Mumbai Indians (MI) head coach Mahela Jayawardene revealed why batter Tilak Varma was retired out against Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) in the 16th match of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 at the Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Cricket Stadium in Lucknow on Friday, April 4th.

Tilak Varma came in the second inning as an Impact Player. However, he was retired out after scoring 25 runs from 23 balls at a strike rate of 108.70. He slammed two fours during his time on the crease. Many cricket pundits have criticized the MI team management's decision to pull Tilak from the crease, even though he was an impact player.

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That Was A Tactical Decision At That Point: Jayawardene On Pulling Tilak Varma Out From Crease

While speaking at the post-match press conference, Mahela Jayawardene cleared the air and said that it was a ‘tactical decision’ from the team management during the game. The MI head coach took full responsibility for the decision and said that he needed someone ‘fresh’ on the crease in the death overs.

"Tilak batted well for us when we lost that (third) wicket and that partnership with Surya. He wanted to get going but just couldn't and waited till the last few overs hoping; because you spent some time, you should have been able to get that hit out of the way. But I felt that in the end, I just needed someone fresh to have a go when he was struggling. These things happen in cricket, and it was not nice to take him out, but I had to do that. That was a tactical decision at that point," Jayawardene said.

The former cricketer added that the MI bowling attack can adapt to conditions pretty well. He showered praise on MI skipper Hardik Pandya for pulling the game for them during the run chase in the second inning.

"With the experience that he has, he realised that this [bowling slow and back of length] is what he probably needs to do because we did leak too many runs in the powerplay. We just needed to take a bit of pace off, which we should have done in the powerplay as well. I think that's why these guys are experienced; they adapt to conditions pretty well, see what the opportunities present, and he definitely, with the ball, he pulled the game back for us and gave us a pretty decent chance of chasing this total," he added.

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MI Stand At 7th Place On IPL 2025 Standings

MI had a poor start to IPL 2025; they clinched just one match after playing four games. The Mumbai-based franchise are standing at the seventh place on the standings with two points and have a net run rate of +0.108.