It’s not something that happens often in the Indian Premier League (IPL).
It was a shocking decision because Chennai Super Kings’ Ayush Mhatre, one of the up-and-coming young batsmen in Indian cricket today, was really playing well.
Normally, a player is retired out when they are not able to score quick runs; that’s why fans were left flabbergasted when Mhatre, on 59 off 36 balls, was called back to the dug-out in the 18th over with 15 balls still to go. It wasn’t surprising that he was absolutely displeased with the team management’s decision. He just walked straight back and needed no explanation from anyone. That could happen when one is really not happy.
This was Mhatre’s second fifty this season, and not long ago in the game, he had taken a seasoned bowler like Lungi Ngidi to the cleaners. A retire-out counts as a wicket, and Delhi Capitals would have been relieved to see the back of him without doing anything.
India all-rounder Shivam Dube came in next, but it’s not that he did a lot of damage with the bat. In the last five overs, in fact, Chennai did very little, if truth be told. At the end of the 15th over, they were 160/1, and at the end of their innings, they were only 212/2. Just 52 runs and without losing any wickets, in a manner of speaking.
During this period, Sanju Samson, centurion of the innings, also couldn’t do much. He played 13 balls, and all he scored was 25 runs. Dube, meanwhile, scored 20 off 10 balls, which was by no stretch of imagination out of the ordinary.
One has to say Mhatre was unfortunate to be retired out. It should have been Samson, if it had to be done. He looked really tired out there, and the younger Mhatre could have done some serious damage. One feels bad for him. One can’t help thinking that because he was a budding cricketer, it was easier to remove him.
For the sixth time a player has been retired out!
The kind of batting we have seen from other teams like Punjab Kings, Sunrisers Hyderabad and table-topping Rajasthan Royals in the last few hours… that being a blueprint, there is no denying that CSK could have done a lot better and Samson, being a senior player, should have put his hand up in terms of upping the ante. Sadly, he couldn’t, and young Mhatre had to make way for Dube.
This was the sixth occasion of retiring out in the IPL. R Ashwin, Atharva Taide, Sai Sudharsan, Tilak Varma and Devon Conway were the previous ones.
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