Former India spinner Murali Kartik has talked about the on-field altercation between Mumbai Indians’ players Naman Dhir and Tilak Varma during a tense moment in their recent IPL 2026 game against Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) on May 10 in Raipur.

Thanks to Tilak Varma’s 57 and Naman Dhir’s 47, MI managed to put on 166/7 in 20 overs after being asked to bat first. In response, Deepak Chahar and Corbin Bosch reduced RCB to 94/4, and that was when Krunal Pandya played an amazing knock of 73 to take RCB near the target. In a tight finish, a six in the last over from Bhuvneshwar Kumar helped RCB win the game by 2 wickets.

When Krunal Pandya slammed the ball from Allah Ghazanfar towards the long-on boundary in the 18th over, Tilak Varma and Naman Dhir were involved. Dhir finished the catch but was unable to stop himself from going over the boundary.

Tilak was able to return the ball to the ground in time, but he did not attempt the relay catch since he believed it was already a six. The two cricket players got into a heated conversation, and although the batters did not score, it turned out to be quite expensive because Krunal hit two sixes in the over before being dismissed.

Tilak was chastised by Murali Kartik for engaging in a "fight" during the game when he ought to have understood the significance of returning the ball.

“It's a tough one to 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 one. 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.  

Additionally, Kartik stated that there are already a lot of rumors about the Mumbai Indians, and this most recent altercation between Naman and Tilak will just make them more prevalent.

“Yes, there have been a million murmurs going around. Yes, there are things that 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, 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.

Thanks to this loss, MI was eliminated from the IPL 2026 playoffs race.