Only a day after Gujarat Giants' Ayushi Soni became the first player in the Women's Premier League to be dismissed 'Retired Out', UP Warriorz's Harleen Deol joined the list. Harleen retired her innings before the start of the 18th over after scoring a 36-ball 47 against Delhi Capitals, at the DY Patil Stadium, on Wednesday.

Explaining what went behind the scenes in the decision to retire Harleen, UP Warriorz mentor Lisa Sthalekar said, "One thing that I've learnt about Abhishek [Nayar] pretty quickly is he's a real student of the game. He watches lots of footage, he has a good understanding of oppositions, our players, our strengths and our weaknesses. He turned to me and he goes, 'I think it's time we need to potentially bring Harleen off'. And I was like, 'OK, this isn't a normal thing in the women's game'.

"Then another over came and she just wasn't able to get that swing, that power that we needed to clear the boundary. So then it was decided [to take Harleen off], and then he spoke to Meg [Lanning] and a couple of the coaches just quickly to make sure we were all on the same page. And then we pulled the trigger.

"The only thing I questioned [regarding retiring out Harleen] was Meg had got out [only a few deliveries earlier] and I said, 'if we pull her the next over, then you've got two new batters. She's kind of got used to the conditions'. But I think we had about 40 (24) deliveries left. So it's like, how are we going to maximise the 40 (24) deliveries? We still felt with Chloe [Tryon], [S] Asha, with Sophie [Ecclestone], that we still had firepower."

The move to end Harleen's innings abruptly didn't work out too well for Warriorz on Wednesday as following her departure, they managed to add only 13 runs in the last 18 balls of the innings. Given that the match was won by Capitals off the last ball, the decision to retire her probably backfired on the day.

While Harleen's form of dismissal is still fairly new to women's cricket, as Lisa mentioned, it's a growing pattern in global T20. Across T20 leagues in the world being played currently - men and women - she became the eighth player in 14 days of 2026 to been dismissed 'Retired Out'. And so far, the results of this fairly novel move has only been a case of a bit of a hit-and-miss.

Of the eight times the decision has been taken this year, only twice have the teams ended on the winning side. Of the two occasions where the teams have won, the incoming batters didn't make enough of an impact. When Pretoria Capitals retired Roston Chase on a 15-ball 24, the incoming batter Sherfane Rutherford got out for a second-ball duck. In the last 10 balls of the Pretoria Capitals' innings - following Chase's dismissal - they managed to add only 10 runs.

Similarly, when Northern Districts retired Tim Pringle, who had struggled his way to a 12-ball 5, the incoming Ben Pomare made a 5-ball 1, before Xavier Bell (who was retired a few days earlier) came and blasted a 21-ball 53.

The impact of these retirements cannot be quantified with just the match results. For example, once Soni was retired by Gujarat Giants on Tuesday, the incoming Bharti Fulmali blasted a 15-ball 36, and the team added 54 runs in 24 balls from that point.

The results may not always be favourable. Coaches have been slow to adapt to this innovation in cricket, but patterns are changing. Even Stephen Fleming, the head coach of Chennai Super Kings who had been vehemently against this idea for many years, allowed for Devon Conway to be retired by CSK in the 18th over of their run-chase against Punjab Kings in IPL 2025.

The rationale for retiring out players isn't too complicated. With players in specialised positions being trained to play in certain specific periods of the innings, to go out and hit from ball one, retiring out set batters allows to maximise their skills of their resources.

It wasn't too different for UP Warriorz. "If you're trying to capitalise on the last few overs, you want the balls to be clearing the boundaries with ease. And that's why a number of teams we've seen over a recent amount of time have decided to retire a player out and bring in firepower. Sometimes it works, and we've seen that in the Big Bash recently, it worked. And then, sometimes it doesn't."

While the logic to retire out players is pretty straightforward, it's not always a one-size-fits-all approach. Even a designated power-hitter like Kieron Pollard had walked off on an off-day - during West Indies' 2021 T20 World Cup match against Bangladesh after managing only 8 runs off 16 deliveries (Since this incident happened before the rule-change, he returned to bat in the last over of the innings, and finished with a six).

While the decision to retire out players makes practical sense for the teams and the coaches, the novelty of it is yet to be understood from the perspective of the players who are at the receiving end of such calls. Michael Klinger, the head coach of Gujarat Giants, had mentioned that it could be tough on the players.

"It's tough on the individual and we've spoken to Ayushi and we'll continue to speak to her and keep the confidence in her, but sometimes you've got to make those calls," Klinger had mentioned after taking the call to retire Soni, who had struggled her way to a 14-ball 11 on her WPL debut.

On Wednesday, Harleen in fact played one of her better WPL innings, on a surface which was turning and holding up a bit. For all her struggles against Shafali Verma - like that of all other batters on the night - she had done reasonably well to counter the other spinners with her sweeps and cuts.

While UPW's approach to retire Harleen was in line with how modern-day T20 cricket prepares for batters in designated phase-play roles to take charge, the traditional methods have also found its advantages at times - none more extreme than Rahul Tewatia's innings in IPL 2020 against Punjab Kings in Sharjah. In a chase of 224, Tewatia had managed only 17 off the first 23 deliveries, before he launched six sixes off the next seven balls he faced.

Whether Harleen's time in the middle would have helped UPW a better score is anyone's guess. But as T20 cricket evolves, 2026 has offered ample signs of what could be a very common mode of dismissal in the shortest format going forward. Sthalekar too admitted that it has been a part of her evolution in accepting this change. "The game keeps evolving, and if we keep getting stuck in the past, then someone's going to catch us up."