Abhishek Nayar Breaks Silence on Harleen Deol Retire-Out Call, Says ‘It Wasn’t Like…’

Harleen Deol was understandably upset as the UP Warriorz team head coach, Abhishek Nayar, asked her to retire herself mid-innings, during the team’s match against the Delhi Capitals. This is particularly surprising given the fact that she was on 47 from 36 deliveries with three overs still to face. However, instead of being affected by this incident, she reacted the way she could have hoped – with a knock.

Scoring 64 runs from just 39 balls while remaining unbeaten and scoring 12 boundaries meant that UP Warriorz chased down a target of 162 with 11 balls and seven wickets in hand. Every time Harleen hit a boundary in those matches, Nayar was caught on camera in their dugout, making it a highly interesting scenario.

“It wasn’t like a very spontaneous decision. The conversation started around the 12th over, when we first sent a message to Meg Lanning while they were batting together. I think post the time-out in the 14th over, Meg decided to have a word with Harleen as well. At that point of time, we had already communicated to Harleen that if we don’t get going in the 16th or 17th over, we will look for a change,” Nayar told reporters in the post-match press conference.

“I know from the outside it feels like, ‘oh damn, what happened?’ but when we reached the 17th over, we just felt we have the power, we wanted to make sure we gave them the opportunity in the game. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. In hindsight, the whole team felt like that was the right decision,” he added.