Ahmedabad, March 24 -- Following his side's six run loss to the Gujarat Titans (GT) in their Indian Premier League (IPL) campaign opener, Mumbai Indians (MI) skipper Hardik Pandya said that he backs batter Tilak Varma's decision to not take that single against Rashid Khan to give strike to hard-hitting Tim David, even though it perhaps cost them the game.

MI failed to capitalise on momentum brought by a 77-run stand between Rohit Sharma and Dewald Brevis and registered a narrow loss to start the tournament. A crucial decision that decided the outcome of the game was Tilak not taking a single against Rashid Khan in the 17th over and backing himself to fire runs against the spinner instead of David.

In the post match presentation, Hardik ...