Former India spinner Murali Kartik was quite critical of Tilak Varma’s attitude during the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2026 match between the Mumbai Indians and the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) on Sunday night in Raipur. The Mumbai Indians batter was involved in an argument with his teammate Naman Dhir during the RCB’s batting innings, and the cameras picked it up. The incident happened on the second delivery of the 18th over when Krunal Pandya skied the ball up.
The ball bowled by Allah Ghazanfar was lofted towards the mid-on boundary by the left-hander, and Naman grabbed the catch near the boundary. But just as he was about to touch the boundary cushion, he parried it towards Tilak, who didn’t gather the ball, thinking it was a six.
Rather than throwing the ball towards the pitch, Tilak started to have an animated chat with Naman, and the back-and-forth continued between the two for a few seconds before they eventually realised the task at hand. Eventually, Naman hadn’t touched the ropes, and Mumbai missed on a golden chance to dismiss the left-hander right there and then. Kartik lambasted Tilak for having a “fight” during the game when he should have known the importance of throwing the ball back.
“It’s a tough one for say. For us to speculate from afar is not the right thing. Even if you are a commentator and are on the ground, you don’t know what exactly is happening. Sometimes with big teams, when things aren’t going well, the easiest target is something like this. But one thing did upset me,” said Kartik on Cricbuzz.
“You spoke about the catch that Naman Dhir should have taken, just that interaction at that point in time. It wasn’t needed, yes, they didn’t take a single. They didn’t take a run because Krunal was cramping at that time. But you don’t need a fight in the middle or a bit of an altercation or argument. As Naman Dhir suggested, you should be throwing the ball. I don’t know whether that’s reflective of anything, but that is something that shouldn’t have happened,” he added.
‘Million murmurs’
Kartik also added that there are already plenty of murmurs surrounding the Mumbai Indians, and this latest flashpoint between Naman and Tilak would just lead to the voices rising.
“Yes, there have been a million murmurs going around. Yes, there are things which haven’t happened, and yes, the last three years haven’t gone the way MI would have wanted. But for me, I didn’t want to see what I saw today. All of us are pretty intense on the ground, but at the time, where common sense and cricket smarts need to take over,” said Kartik.
“At a crucial stage, you don’t want two people to have an argument at the end of the boundary rope. You don’t want to see that,” he added.
Mumbai Indians were eliminated from the IPL 2026 playoff race after the five-time champions went down by two wickets against RCB. Suryakumar Yadav has been leading the franchise in the last two games due to Hardik Pandya’s absence due to a back spasm.