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Tilak Verma faced criticism for his on-field altercation with Mumbai Indians teammate Naman Dheer during MI’s clash against Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) in Raipur on Sunday.
MI lost a close contest on the last ball and are officially out of the playoff race in IPL 2026. Mumbai Indians have managed just 3 wins in 11 matches and can only play party-poopers in their remaining matches.
MI lost the thrilling match on the last ball
RCB’s decision to bowl first paid off as Bhuvneshwar Kumar ran through the MI batting line-up like a hot knife through butter. He took three wickets including Rohit Sharma and Suryakumar Yadav on consecutive balls in the powerplay.
Naman Dheer and Tilak Verma held on in the middle overs, but both were out before they could do any further damage. Bhuvneshwar took 4 wickets and Mumbai Indians set RCB a target of 167 runs.
RCB faced problems of their own while chasing the target. Deepak Chahar dismissed Virat Kohli for a duck on the first ball and also dismissed Devdutt Padikkal. Corbin Bosch caught Rajat Patidar on the very first ball and put RCB behind by three wickets in the powerplay.
Krunal Pandya and Jacob Bethel made a half-century partnership, which was also broken by Bosch. Jitesh Sharma played a quick cameo, before both he and Tim David were out to Bosch on consecutive balls.
After this, Pandya took the responsibility of attacking the bowlers, especially AM Ghazanfar. Krunal survived a missed chance in the 18th over and hit two sixes before finally getting out.
Jasprit Bumrah set up the match brilliantly in the 19th over, but everything was ruined in the last over. A volley of wides and no-balls brought RCB’s equation from 15 runs in 6 balls to 9 runs in 3 balls. Bhuvneshwar Kumar once again hit a six on the first ball. RCB needed 2 runs on the last ball and Rasikh Dar was out after scoring a quick run, after which more drama was seen.
Tilak Verma and Naman Dheer incident
The incident happened in the 18th over while RCB was chasing the target. Krunal Pandya hit AM Ghazanfar’s ball towards the long-on boundary, where Naman Dheer ran and caught the ball.
Dhir realized that he would cross the boundary with the ball in hand, so he gave the catch to Tilak Verma, who did not step forward to take it. After dropping the catch, Tilak Verma had an argument with Dheer on the spot.
According to visuals, Tilak Verma thought Dheer had crossed the boundary with the ball in hand, but replays confirmed that this was not the case, and Krunal Pandya was indeed dismissed.
Pandya hit two more sixes in the same over, before Tilak Verma completed a relay catch on the last ball of that over.
Murali Karthik criticized Tilak Verma and Naman Dheer
Speaking on Cricbuzz, former India spinner Murali Karthik condemned the incident. He said that both the fielders should have picked up the ball instead of just trying to argue there.
“It is difficult to say. It is not right for us to speculate from a distance. Even if you are a commentator and are on the field, you do not know what is actually happening. Sometimes with big teams, when things are not going well, the easiest target is something like that. But one thing troubled me,” Karthik said.
“You talked about the catch that Naman Dheer should have taken, that was the only conversation at that time. It was not needed, yes, he did not take a single run. He did not take a run because Krunal was in cramps at that time.”
He said, “But you don’t need a fight or any dispute or debate. As Naman Dheer suggested, you should throw the ball. I don’t know if it reflects anything or not, but it is something that should not have happened.”
“Yes, there are millions of rumors going around. Yes, there are things that have not happened, and yes, the last three years have not gone the way MI wanted. But for me, I did not want to see what I saw today. We are all quite intense on the field, but at times, that’s where common sense and cricketing smarts need to prevail,” Karthik said.
“At a critical stage, you don’t want to have an argument between two people at the end of the line. You don’t want to see that,” he said.
Also read: India remains at No. 1 in ICC ODI rankings after annual update; Pakistan faced a huge decline
