Tilak Varma (L) and Naman Dhir© X (formerly Twitter)
A dropped catch by Tilak Varma and Naman Dhir proved to be extremely costly as Royal Challengers Bengaluru clinched a last-ball thriller against Mumbai Indians in Raipur on Sunday. The incident happened in the 18th over of the match when Krunal Pandya slammed the ball from Allah Ghazanfar towards the long-on boundary. Dhir completed the catch but could not control himself from crossing the boundary. While he was able to throw the ball back into the ground in time, Tilak thought that it was already a six and did not go for the relay catch. It led to an animated chat between the two cricketers and although the batters did not take a run, it proved to be quite costly as Krunal slammed two sixes in the over before his dismissal.
This is where we lost the game, Naman Dhir saved six runs with his fielding and threw back ball to the fielder. Tilak Verma didn’t go for the catch and krunal survived. Krunal Pandya smashed 2 sixes in the same over which costed us the match. This was game changing moment pic.twitter.com/iao1tBjrZC
— JB (@93Yorker) May 10, 2026
Coming to the match, Suryakumar Yadav admitted his side fell short in key moments after their heartbreaking two-wicket defeat to Royal Challengers Bengaluru at the Shaheed Veer Narayan Singh International Stadium on Sunday ended MI’s campaign in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2026.
Defending 166 on a challenging surface, Mumbai pushed the contest to the final ball before RCB escaped with a dramatic win. Reflecting on the defeat, Suryakumar felt the batting innings lacked the extra cushion required on such a difficult pitch. “I think we were 10-15 runs short. We can say the wrong timing of wickets (while batting). Naman and Tilak batted beautifully and showed character,” he said after the loss.
After early blows from Bhuvneshwar Kumar had reduced Mumbai to 28/3, Tilak Varma and Naman Dhir rebuilt the innings impressively. Naman struck a fluent 47 while Tilak anchored the innings with a composed 57, helping MI recover to 166/7 after a difficult start.
Suryakumar Yadav also reserved special praise for young all-rounder Raj Bawa, who nearly defended 15 runs in a tense final over before RCB sealed victory off the last ball. “I think he had been practising that (death bowling) really well, and he was a completely different all-rounder this year. Almost pulled it off for us,” he said.
(With IANS inputs)
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