After the Mumbai Indians’ (MI) defeat in their IPL 2026 clash against the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), former India player Aakash Chopra has criticized Tilak Varma for his below-par performances this season. He highlighted that the Team India star has played a few good knocks but has been found wanting otherwise.
Tilak scored 20 runs off 32 balls as MI set KKR a 148-run target in the 65th game of IPL 2026 in Kolkata on Wednesday, May 20. The home team achieved the target with four wickets and seven balls to spare to keep their hopes of qualifying for the playoffs alive.
In a video shared on his YouTube channel, ‘Aakash Chopra,’ the former India batter pointed out that while Hardik Pandya and Suryakumar Yadav’s indifferent performances have been huge reasons behind MI’s poor run in IPL 2026, Tilak hasn’t had a good season either.
“Mumbai’s batting was extremely ordinary. This team wouldn’t have even reached here had Corbin Bosch not scored those runs. That’s the reality. Neither Hardik Pandya nor Suryakumar Yadav scored runs. They have been two massive factors in the entire season due to which Mumbai are standing here at this point in time,” Chopra said.
“In fact, even Tilak Varma in this match. Let’s be very honest, Tilak Varma has had only three or four good games. Overall, his season has also been very ordinary. He scored a century, won a game recently against Punjab, and scored another fifty, those were outstanding, but that’s about it,” he added.
Chopra highlighted that the left-handed middle-order batter has been extremely slow, especially in the initial part of his innings.
“I won’t consider it a very good season, and he has scored very slowly. His strike rate has been close to 120 in the first 20 balls. He was extremely slow in this match. The performance of these three big players was extremely ordinary, and this team is in this situation because of that,” he observed.
Although Tilak Varma has scored 356 runs at a strike rate of 148.95 in 13 innings, he has generally taken quite a few balls to get his eye in. While Suryakumar Yadav has aggregated 210 runs at a strike rate of 148.93 in 12 innings, Hardik Pandya has managed 172 runs at a strike rate of 128.35 in nine innings.
“I felt Naman Dhir wasn’t out” – Aakash Chopra on MI batter’s dismissal in IPL 2026 loss vs KKR
In the same video, Aakash Chopra opined that Naman Dhir was given out wrongly in MI’s IPL 2026 clash against KKR.
“I felt Naman Dhir wasn’t out. In Naman Dhir’s DRS dismissal, when the spike came, the ball hadn’t touched the bat. The entire ball’s shadow was visible on the bat. It means the ball hadn’t touched the bat,” he said.
The cricketer-turned-commentator pointed out that there was no spike on UltraEdge when the ball was next to the bat and that the sound earlier could have come from anywhere.
“There was no spike when the ball passed the bat. I think the third umpire got it wrong. You might ask where the sound came from. It can come from many things. The chain on your neck can hit the helmet. The bat handle makes a sound at times. So the sound can come from anything, but the visible evidence wasn’t convincing enough,” Chopra observed.
Naman Dhir was dismissed for a three-ball duck in MI’s IPL 2026 clash against KKR. Although the on-field umpire didn’t give the MI batter out, the third umpire reversed the decision after a review.
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Edited by Kartik Iyer
