New Delhi, April 9 : Chennai Super Kings' decision to retire out Devon Conway during their 18-run loss to Punjab Kings in IPL 2025 has sparked debate, with former India spinner Piyush Chawla suggesting the move came far too late to impact the game.

Conway became the second batter this season to be retired out, after Mumbai Indian's Tilak Varma. Chawla believes the tactical substitution might have come when the damage was already done.

"Conway is the kind of batter who is more technically strong and he doesn't try to play that many shots in the air. You saw that in the middle overs also; when he was trying to hit a pull shot also, he was rolling his wrists like a proper technical batsman," Chawla said on ESPNcricinfo's TimeOut show.

"That's where they missed that point. When Shivam (Dube) was trying to hit those big shots, Conway didn't even try that. At one point, I felt he just wanted to take it deep. But if you want to take the game deep, you don't want your asking rate to go out of hand," Chawla said.

Conway had added a 61-run opening stand with Rachin Ravindra and then partnered with Dube to add another 89 off just 51 balls. By the time Dube departed and the equation read 69 off 25, Conway managed just 9 runs from the next six deliveries before CSK finally decided to retire him out.

Regular wickets, however, hampered CSK's progress. MS Dhoni's quickfire 27 off 12 balls kept the chase alive until he got out in the final over and CSK fell 18-run short.

"It felt too late. If you wanted to retire him, you could have done it two or three overs earlier. You need to give the incoming batter a few balls to settle and then go hard. Retiring him when the required rate was already out of hand didn't help," the former spinner added.

/IANS