LISA STHALEKAR: Retiring batters like Mohammad Rizwan is a new part of T20 cricket fans need to accept

Batters have been forced to retire hurt but now they are being retired for not making runs quickly enough.

Over the past week four players have been hooked by their own side and I was involved in one of them.

It isn’t just a phenomenon that we are seeing in the men’s game, but also the women’s game.

Out of the four that occurred last week, two happened in the Men’s Big Bash League in Australia and the other two in the Women’s Premier League in India.

I was part of the decision makers for one of those decisions in the WPL as I am a mentor for the UP Warriorz side.

Harleen Deol was the player that we retired out. At the time she was on 47 runs off 36 deliveries and we were 4-141 in the 17th over.

To give you a little more context to the decision, we were at 2-112 after the 12th over, however the next few overs we only scored 2, 11, 5, 8 and 3 runs per over.

Messages had been sent to go hard, however at the time it was evident that Delhi Capital, our opposition, were bowling well and we lacked the brute power in the middle.

It is acceptable to not allow a bowler to bowl their four allocated overs if they are not bowling well, therefore I don’t understand why retiring a batter is any worse than that.

There were still players like Chloe Tryon, Sophie Ecclestone and Asha Sobhana to bat who have the ability to hit over the boundary with ease.

Retiring the Indian international didn’t pan out as we had hoped as we lost 4-13 in the last 18 deliveries.

It sparked a lot of debate, “how could we” especially given that she was “set, she understood the conditions and was trying”.

The same thing can be said about the action taken by Melbourne Renegades to retire Mohammad Rizwan in the BBL. At the time Rizwan was 26 runs off 23 balls against the Thunder.

He had been really struggling throughout the entire campaign, with a strike rate just over 100.

The fallout was evident, despite commentators mentioning that it was a good move and something that could have been done a couple of overs earlier.

In his post-match interview, Renegades skipper Will Sutherland publicly apologised to Rizwan, trying to defuse the situation by stating, “the match was in a thrilling stage, emotions were high, and I am ashamed of my behaviour. You are a quality player and well respected by fans.”

There were even rumours that Rizwan was going to leave the tournament early, thankfully he proved himself a team player and said “he respects leader’s decisions”.

At the UP Warriorz, Deol was well communicated to by the coach, captain and later by myself to ensure that she fully understood the reasons behind the decision and that we felt that we were doing the best thing for the team.

The following match, Deol went on to win us the match against the Mumbai Indians by scoring 64 off 39 deliveries.

Based on these recent examples and other conversations I have had with current and past players in this region, retirement of a batter is something that still needs to be normalised in the subcontinent.

The initial emotional reaction that the head coach, captain or team have stopped backing you is a false narrative, created either by the players themselves or fans.

At the end of the day T20 cricket is about winning, and with only 120 deliveries to succeed, I believe that this format has become the most tactical out of all of them.

Each ball is an event that you are trying to win.

You don’t have the luxury of time to see how things might play out.

The best captains on the field are the most astute when it comes to tactics.

It is acceptable to not allow a bowler to bowl their four allocated overs if they are not bowling well, therefore I don’t understand why retiring a batter is any worse than that.

Fans, players and pundits all need to accept that retiring batters will be a tactic more teams use in the future.