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It was a routine Wednesday night \u2014 inasmuch as a Wednesday night with India playing a Twenty20 International can be routine \u2014 until it wasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

The series had been won and lost. In\u00a0Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli\u2019s comeback to the 20-over scheme of things internationally in India\u2019s final engagements before the T20 World Cup, the hosts had taken a winning 2-0 lead over Afghanistan.\u00a0Kohli had missed the first game due to personal reasons while\u00a0Rohit had been dismissed without scoring in both victories, run out in the first match in\u00a0Mohali and bowled in the next in\u00a0Indore.<\/p>\n

For both, 17 January 2024 was an important date \u2013 their last T20I before the World Cup in the Americas.\u00a0Kohli was dismissed for a first-ball duck, one of four wickets India lost in the PowerPlay. At 22 for four with 93 deliveries remaining, everything pointed to a consolation maiden T20I victory for Afghanistan over their Big Brother.<\/p>\n

Until\u00a0Rohit decided it was time to show everyone who the boss was. With\u00a0Rinku\u00a0Singh for company, the captain initiated a rescue act. And more than five years after his previous T20I hundred, the opener added a fifth to his tally, an unbeaten 121 off 69 which, coupled with\u00a0Rinku\u2019s\u00a069 not out, hauled India to 212 for four.<\/p>\n

Afghanistan replied in kind through their top order and finished on 212 for six, sending the M.\u00a0Chinnaswamy Stadium crowd into raptures and setting up a Super Over. Where the Afghans batted first and made 16. Thanks to\u00a0Rohit\u2019s two sixes, India reached 15 with one ball to spare. The skipper was at the non-striker\u2019s end after a single off the fifth ball, had a word with the umpire and trudged off.\u00a0Rinku replaced him in the middle, ostensibly because he was the quicker runner.\u00a0
\nYashasvi Jaiswal managed just one off the last ball, sending the match spiralling to a second Super Over.\u00a0Rohit Sharma, presumably retired out, a tactical move.<\/p>\n

Wait. Forget about presumably. It seems he hadn\u2019t retired out. Because otherwise, how could he have come out to bat in the second Super Over? The rules clearly stipulate that a batter who has been dismissed \u2014 in any mode, which includes retired out \u2014 is ineligible to bat in any subsequent Super Over. Oh well\u2026<\/p>\n

In the immediacy of that game \u2014 oh, India won in the second Super Over, with\u00a0Rohit slamming a six and a four in his team\u2019s 11 for two, and\u00a0Ravi Bishnoi picking up two wickets in the first three deliveries to derail Afghanistan \u2014 head coach Rahul\u00a0Dravid practically acknowledged that\u00a0Rohit had retired himself out. \u201cTaking himself out was Ashwin-level thinking. That\u2019s Ash-level thinking,\u201d\u00a0Dravid, who thinks little of repeating himself when he feels the need to stress a point, told the host broadcaster.<\/p>\n

Novelty factor<\/b><\/p>\n

The\u00a0Rohit retired out or not drama was laid to rest then and there, especially with Afghanistan opting not to make an issue of it. But the Dravid reference to\u00a0R.\u00a0Ashwin, lingered. After all, the off-spinner with novelty and creativity coursing through his veins was the first player to be retired out in the Indian Premier League in April 2022, while batting for Rajasthan Royals against\u00a0Lucknow Super Giants.<\/p>\n

Ashwin had made 28 off 23, two sixes, when he walked off; his team was on 135 for five with ten deliveries left. More than anything else, that decision was influenced by the need to have a younger, faster partner for the marauding\u00a0Shimron Hetmyer, though that shouldn\u2019t have been a consideration, considering the West Indian left-hander smashed six sixes in his 36-ball 59 not out.\u00a0RR added 30 in those 10 balls to finish on 165 for six, decisive given that they trooped out winners by three runs.<\/p>\n

Further retirements came the next season \u2014\u00a0Punjab Kings\u2019\u00a0Atharva Taide\u00a0(55 off 42) against Delhi Capitals, and\u00a0Sai
\nSudharsan (43 off 31) for Gujarat Titans in Qualifier 2 against Mumbai Indians, with mixed fortunes.\u00a0Taide\u2019s \u2018dismissal\u2019 triggered a collapse and\u00a0Punjab\u00a0went down by 15 runs. Post Sudharsan\u2019s retirement at the end of the 19th over, Gujarat amassed 19 runs in an eventually comfortable 62-run hammering of Mumbai.<\/p>\n

Interestingly, neither Ashwin nor\u00a0Taide and\u00a0Sudharsan had dawdled during their knocks.\u00a0Ashwin struck at 121.73 (not flash, agreed),\u00a0Taide\u2019s strike-rate was 130.95 and\u00a0Sudharsan had scored even faster, at 138.70 runs per 100 balls faced. Yet, they were called back by their respective decision-making group for tactical reasons.\u00a0Ashwin was hailed, like he has been for so many things over the last decade and a half, for walking off, Rajasthan were commended for thinking on their feet.\u00a0
\nTaide and\u00a0Sudharsan almost flew under the radar because, well, they are not\u00a0Ashwin.<\/p>\n

But Friday at the sprawling\u00a0Ekana Cricket Stadium in\u00a0Lucknow was bereft of commendation, of feel-good, of a pat on the back for the Mumbai Indians management. Not because they went down by 12 runs to hosts\u00a0Lucknow \u00a0Super Giants, but because of their move to retire out Tilak\u00a0Varma, the gifted left-hander who admittedly was struggling to get the ball off the square.<\/p>\n

Tilak is a wonderful talent, supremely level-headed for one who is still only 22. He is confident and high on self-belief. A few months back, he approached T20I skipper\u00a0Suryakumar Yadav during the series in South Africa and asked for the captain\u2019s No. 3 position in the batting order. When\u00a0Suryakumar obliged,\u00a0Tilak justified his request with successive hundreds in Centurion and Johannesburg. How about that, people?<\/p>\n

In 25 T20Is, Tilak averages 49.93, his strike-rate is a wonderful 155.07. In the\u00a0IPL, where all his 42 matches since his debut in 2022 have come for five-time former champions Mumbai, his average is a healthy 39.09, his strike-rate a more-than-acceptable 143.14. He is at once one for the present and the future, an explosive bundle of power and aesthetics, a new-age player who is steeped in old-school values.<\/p>\n

But this hasn\u2019t been a great season for the left-hander. Before Friday, he had made 70 runs in three innings, striking at 114.75. The usual fluency peeped out only in patches, one of the reasons why Mumbai have struggled to make an impact. In\u00a0Lucknow, despite his best efforts, he struggled and struggled, limping to 25 off 23 \u2013 the target was a testing 204 \u2013 when Mumbai finally decided they had had enough. Like he had been when\u00a0Sudharsan \u00a0was retired out in 2023,\u00a0Hardik Pandya\u00a0was again at the non-striker\u2019s end. Like then, when he was the GT skipper, he was again in a leadership role, helming MI campaign.<\/p>\n

Tilak \u00a0came out after 18.5 overs, with 24 required off seven deliveries. Replacing him, and on strike, was Mitchell\u00a0
\nSantner, the New Zealand captain who had done battle against\u00a0Pandya in the final of the Champions Trophy in Dubai just about four weeks previously.<\/p>\n

Santner is primarily a left-arm spinner but he is no mug with the bat. He averages 26 in Tests and has struck 107 sixes in 217 T20s, boasting a strike-rate of 130.35. Not\u00a0Tilak level, true, but certainly better than the level\u00a0Tilak displayed on the night. It was a move that didn\u2019t come off, because\u00a0Santner faced just two of the last seven deliveries. And in that is a tale in itself.<\/p>\n

The Kiwi skipper bunted two runs off his first ball, then watched as\u00a0Pandya\u00a0smashed the first ball of the last over, from\u00a0
\nAvesh Khan, over cover for six. Now 16 off 5. The next ball produced a couple \u2013 14 off 4. Jangle, jangle. Pandya tonked the next ball to deep square-leg but did not take the single. He sent\u00a0Santner back, believing that if anyone could get them over the line, it was him. That didn\u2019t quite work out. Just one run off the next three deliveries meant Mumbai slumped to their third loss in four matches.<\/p>\n

If\u00a0Santner was to be denied the strike in the last over because of\u00a0Pandya\u2019s belief in himself more than his partner, then why was he summoned in the first place? And if all that\u00a0Pandya\u2019s partner had to do was run between the wickets, couldn\u2019t\u00a0Tilak\u00a0have managed that? After all, while the big strokes were proving elusive, that shouldn\u2019t be a deterrent to pace over the 22 yards, correct?<\/p>\n

Pandya and head coach Mahela Jayawardene have received plenty of flak for retiring\u00a0Tilak out. After all, the ends justify the means, and because Mumbai ended up on the losing side, this was a move open to criticism. Had\u00a0Pandya (and\/or\u00a0
\nSantner) pulled the fat out of the fire, it would have been eulogised and celebrated as a\u00a0masterstroke, such is the wisdom hindsight confers on us. Subsequent damage control has surfaced in the form of \u2018sources\u2019 revealing that\u00a0Tilak had a \u2018finger niggle\u2019 (a new one that) in his left hand, which precipitated his exit from the middle. If that was the case, why wasn\u2019t he retired out a little earlier? Why was\u00a0Santner not given the luxury of a few more deliveries? Why did Mumbai leave it so late before deciding that it wasn\u2019t going to be\u00a0Tilak\u2019s night? And if they had chosen to believe in him until 18.5 overs, maybe they could have just stuck with him, come what may?<\/p>\n

These are questions to which there will be no satisfactory answers, depending on perspective. Retiring out is a tactical, strategic, legal option but more than in most things, prudence and emotion jostle for pre-eminence in this instance. Feel for\u00a0Tilak, sure, but don\u2019t throw\u00a0Pandya and Jayawardene under the bus. After all, this is the world of T20 cricket, where emotional\u00a0rollercoasters are an everyday guarantee.<\/p>\n