Big Bash League: Pakistan's senior wicketkeeper-batter Mohammad Rizwan became a part of an embarrassing moment during the Big Bash League 2025-26 match between Sydney Thunder and the Melbourne Renegades at the Sydney Showground Stadium on Monday. Rizwan retired out while playing for the Renegades, forcing an interesting reaction from the former Pakistan captain as he looked to be struggling in the middle.
The instance took place ahead of the start of the 19th over of the Renegades' innings after they were put into bat first. Rizwan, who had recently been removed as Pakistan’s white-ball captain, came out at no.4 and was batting on 26 off 23 balls. Having smashed just two fours and one six during his stay at the crease, Rizwan could score at the strike rate at which his team wanted him to during the death overs.
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Renegades skipper Will Sutherland was seen near the boundary rope, asking Rizwan to come out, and the right-handed batter obliged. The video of Rizwan getting retired out and his reaction has gone viral on social media.
Under the Laws of Cricket, a batter who retires for reasons other than injury, illness or an unavoidable cause is recorded as "retired out", and can only resume the innings with the opposition captain’s consent. On the other hand, Sutherland got run out after just one ball and his successors, Sam Elliot and Gurinder Sandhu, couldn’t contribute much either.
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Meanwhile, the Renegades managed to score 170/8 in their 20 overs on the back of Hassan Khan's 46-run fiery knock in just 31 balls, whereas Josh Brown also made an impact with his contribution of 35 runs. Talking about Rizwan, he has alternated between No 3 and 4 in the 21st season of Australia’s premier T20 competition, but hasn't impressed much, scoring just 167 runs in eight matches.
Later in the match, the Sydney Thunder chased down the revised target of 140 runs in 15.2 overs. Notably, the second innings was reduced to 16 overs as per the DLS method due to the rain interruption during the match. Nic Maddinson played a fiery knock of unbeaten 30 runs in just 17 balls on the back of two fours and as many sixes. Chris Green also played an impactful cameo and remained not out on 34 runs in just 13 deliveries. He smashed three fours and three sixes as the duo stitched a match-winning partnership of 45 runs for the seventh wicket.
Having already been eliminated from the knockout race, Thunder registered their second win of the season, but they remained last in the Big Bash League points table. In an interesting turn of events, Rizwan was not picked in Pakistan's preliminary squad for the T20 World Cup 2026. The 33-year-old has faced huge criticism lately for his slow batting in the T20I cricket alongside the other senior batter, Babar Azam.
Rizwan has represented Pakistan in 106 T20I matches so far and has scored 3414 runs at an average of 46.77 and a strike rate of 125.38.