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.