While Devon Conway scored 69 runs for Chennai Super Kings (CSK) in their loss to Punjab Kings (PBKS), his knock came at a very slow pace and resulted in his team’s loss by 18 runs in the ongoing IPL 2025.

While Piyush Chawla and Wasim Jaffer believed Chennai made the incorrect move in terms of timing, former Australia captain Michael Clarke questioned the logic.

Conway scored one of the slowest fifties this season, taking 37 balls, and struggled in both the powerplay (22 off 16) and the middle overs (38 off 27). With time running out and the asking rate putting further pressure on the dugout, Chennai elected to retire Conway after the fifth delivery of the 18th over, replacing him with Ravindra Jadeja.

Chawla and Jaffer agreed that Chennai lost the plot not because of the decision itself, but because of the time. The veteran Indian spinner criticized Conway's chase strategy and his hesitation to take risks when Shivam Dube demonstrated aggression in the middle overs.

"He is the kind of batter who is more technically strong and doesn't try to play in the air. We saw that in the middle overs as well when he was rolling his wrists to play the pull shot like a technical batsman. That is where I felt Chennai missed the trick. When Shivam was trying to hit those big shots, Conway didn't even try that. It felt like, at one point, he only wanted to take it deep, but then you also don't want your run rate to go out of hand,” Chawla said on ESPNCricinfo.

"If they wanted to do that, they should have done it two or three overs before because if you think he is not getting those big shots, you want somebody to come in, take two or three balls, and then go for it. By the time they made the decision, I felt it was too late,” he added.

Jaffer agreed with Chawla before questioning if Conway's replacement, Jadeja, was also the right call for the situation.

"They could have done that earlier, but Jadeja was the only one they could have trusted. They needed one more batter there who could have done that, but unfortunately, they didn't. Even Jadeja has his restrictions," he said.

Michael Clarke, on the other hand, was baffled at Conway being retired out by CSK so late in the innings. He stated Chennai should have shown more patience. He believed the well-set opener could have hit sixes in the final phase of the game to take the team through.

"I didn't understand that decision, you retire a player that was on 69 and had spent that much time in the middle. I know you need sixes, but it's not like Conway can't hit sixes. That's the thing with decisions like that as a captain, it's always judged if you win or lose," he said on Star Sports.

CSK will play KKR on April 11 at home in Chennai.