Aakash Chopra has weighed in strongly upon the sluggish knock played by Lucknow Super Giants’ opener Arshin Kulkarni against Royal Challengers Bengaluru in Match 50 of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2026 on Thursday, May 07. Despite LSG’s close win in the contest, Chopra believes that LSG could have retired Kulkarni out during the match for playing with a non-aggressive approach alongside Mitchell Marsh.
The former India opener believes that the concept of retiring a batter out should be used more frequently, and teams should not hesitate from using it to their own advantage, especially in modern-day T20 cricket. He further said how Kulkarni playing at a miserly strike rate could have dented LSG’s chances in the match and how calling him back to the dugout would have been a wise call, taken in the team’s welfare.
“Why don’t we retire out batters? Why is it so taboo? Arshin Kulkarni was given a job to play in the Powerplay. He was more on the non-striker’s end and had to find singles. In fact, this was their first Powerplay in which they didn’t lose a wicket. However, he was going slower than a run-a-ball,” Chopra said in a video on his YouTube channel.
Arshin’s opening partner, Marsh, on the other hand, batted in full swing, scoring a magnificent century (111 off 56) – a knock that also got him the Player of the Match as LSG posted a DLS target of 213 for RCB in 19 overs where the opposition lost by 9 runs. The former cricketer believes that Arshin’s slow innings could have hurt LSG a lot had they lost the match at the Bharat Ratna Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Stadium.
“He scored 17 runs off 24 balls. If Mitchell Marsh is scoring 111 runs off 56 balls, it means he has scored 111 runs off 9.2 overs, and the match had been reduced to 19 overs, but from the other end, only 17 runs were scored in four overs. At some stage, you have to decide that the kid is good and is trying, but is unable to do it, so you should call him out,” he explained further.
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Chopra believes that a team usually does not keep giving overs to a bowler who has been expensive in his first spell. In the same vein, the traditional approach of letting batters continue at the crease despite not being able to up the ante should stop. The cricketer-turned-commentator added that teams should do so without feeling any shame about it.
“If a bowler bowls badly, do you keep giving him overs repeatedly? However, we don’t do that with batters. It’s a taboo topic that we shouldn’t retire out anyone. I think it should have been done in this match. There is no shame in retiring out anyone. Batters will have to be retired out,” the Agra-born observed.
