'It isn't a normal thing in the women's game...': UP Warriorz' mentor breaks silence on retiring Harleen Deol out

UP Warriorz (UPW) mentor Lisa Sthalekar shared her take on the team's decision to retire out Harleen Deol in a clash against the Delhi Capitals (DC) in the Women's Premier League (WPL) 2026. This comes after they made the controversial call to retire out Harleen when she was batting on 47 runs from 36 deliveries with the team on 141/4 after 17 overs. She was joined by the inexperienced Shweta Sehrawat on the crease, who was unbeaten on 7 at that time.

UPW took the decision because Harleen had slowed down quite a bit and was striking at a considerably low strike-rate. She had scored just eight runs from her last ten deliveries between the 15th and 17th overs. It was then that UPW decided to bring her back and sent Chloe Tryon to the crease in her place.

Sthalekar opened up on the call and revealed that head coach Abhishek Nayar was the one, who had suggested to take Harleen off the pitch. Though the decision was quite surprising, Nayar soon had a chat with skipper Meg Lanning and the other coaches to make sure that everyone was on the same page.

"He (Nayar) turns to me and he goes, 'I think it's the time we need to potentially bring Harleen off.' And I was like, 'Ooh, okay, this isn't a normal thing in the women's game,'" Sthalekar said in the post-match press-conference.

"And then I think another over came and she just wasn't able to get that swing, that power that we needed to clear the boundaries. So then it was decided (to retire her out). And then he (Nayar) spoke, I think, to Meg (Lanning, the captain) and a couple of the coaches just quickly to make sure we were all on the same page. And then we pulled the trigger," she added.

The decision of retiring out Harleen went on to backfire for UPW as they only managed to score 13 runs in the final three overs and even lost four wickets. This included the likes of Sehrawat, Tryon, Sophie Ecclestone and Deepti Sharma. They finished their 20 overs on 154/8 and eventually failed to defend the total as DC chased it down on the final delivery of the match.