Sophie Devine, the Gujarat Giants all-rounder, had a simple explanation for what she thought about the frequent use of 'retired out' as an option to end players' innings in recent days: "If players are being able to stay at a good strike rate, I guess you probably don't need to use it as much."

Devine had made the statement only a couple of hours before UP Warriorz took the field against Mumbai Indians on Thursday, and there's only a slight possibility that Harleen Deol would've had access to Devine's thoughts in that short window. Irrespective, Harleen was on the charge on Thursday.

Off the first ball, she went on the backfoot and cut Nat Sciver-Brunt for a boundary through backward point. Off the next ball, she drove Amelia Kerr wide of point for another boundary, and then cut the leggie wide of the diving short third for her third boundary in three balls. She had walked in with all intent to make sure there were no doubts regarding her stay in the middle on Thursday. Three deliveries later, Nicola Carey was cut between backward point and short third.

Mumbai Indians bowlers kept offering width to her, and she kept cashing in on that, ready to throw her arms at it, en route to an unbeaten 39-ball 64 - becoming only the second Indian to register a half-century in this season's WPL. On a day when most batters struggled to get going at a breezy pace, Harleen's attacking innings allowed UP Warriorz to cruise past Mumbai Indians' total with 11 balls to spare, and secure their maiden win of the season.

The redemption was complete in just over 24 hours.

"Nothing different [about my approach]," Harleen admitted. "I just got a few boundary balls, so I could convert it into boundaries. Sometimes it's just your day - that wherever you are thinking to hit, the ball comes there. It was that for me."

Only a day earlier, Harleen was in disbelief - and visibly upset - when UP Warriorz coach Abhishek Nayar had raised his arm at the end of the 17th over and asked her to retire her innings. "Me?" she asked the coach and then her junior partner, Shweta Sehrawat, before accepting the call. With a view to accelerate in the death overs, and Harleen unable to get the big hits as frequently as they would have liked, UPW's think-tank had opted to use the services of the big-hitting batters left in their line-up to maximize the last three overs of their innings.

The call was understandable from the team's perspective. But it backfired. They managed to add only 13 runs off the last 18 balls after ending Harleen's innings on 47 (off 36 balls). Not only was it one of her better performances in WPL (her third highest score, and the seventh fastest across three seasons), but also a fairly challenging one on a surface that was holding up a bit. It did surprise many, including Harmanpreet Kaur, who made her feelings about Harleen's innings getting cut short public.

Harleen played down the impact of that decision on her. In fact, she confessed to having gained confidence from that outing as her lasting reference. "Yesterday also I was batting well but as you saw today, how Chloe [Tryon] can change the scenario," Harleen said. "For me, I just took it that way: Chloe is someone who can hit big. [Yesterday, that decision] probably didn't go our way. There's no point just keep stressing on that thing.

"Honestly, yesterday gave me a lot of confidence in fact because the first two games didn't go my way. I went on and figured out a few things, I was just trying to overhit, this wicket is not the kind that would reward overhitting, scoring requires more timing."

Coach Nayar, justifying the decision, laid out what went behind the scenes. "It wasn't like a very spontaneous decision," Nayar claimed. "The conversation started around the 12th over, when we first sent a message to Meg [Lanning] while they were batting together, and we felt what was the right time to get our power hitters in, that was a thought process. Post the timeout, Meg and Harleen decided to have a go. At that point, we had already communicated to Harleen that if we don't get going till the 16th or 17th over, we will look for a change.

"That communication had started way before [we asked her to retire out]. I know from the outside it feels like, oh damn, what happened. But we started that [conversation] around the 12th over. When it reached the 17th over, we just felt we have the power, so we wanted to make sure we gave them the opportunity in the game. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

"In hindsight, the whole team felt like that was the right decision. So there wasn't much of a conversation post that because the buildup was already there. She knew what the team was doing, Post that, there was nothing actually. Because there was nothing wrong or there was nothing that she didn't expect was going to happen. She was told about that being a possibility if we get there."

Irrespective of the end result of the decision, the rational thought process of wanting to maximize the team total was understandable from the coach's perspective. But for a player - especially as senior as Harleen - such a new form of dismissal has the potential to carry a sense of taboo, if not just hurt and shatter confidence. To revive her fortunes, she had less than 24 hours and no practice session to sharpen her weaknesses.

Nayar claimed that Harleen took the decision of the team in the right spirit. Even if his testimony wasn't enough, Harleen's match-winning performance against Mumbai Indians provided enough proof that her game had levelled up overnight.

Explaining how the coaches handled the situation with the player after the incident, he praised Harleen for her team spirit and said, "Just after walking in [after retiring out], and going out [to field], the first thing she said, 'Sir, we can win this game. It's a tough pitch.' It becomes very easy when you have a player who doesn't think me, thinks team. "The one thing that always stood out about Harleen was how much of a team player she is.

"So the conversations post that [decision] were more about how we can make a difference today. It wasn't a very tough conversation, it was more about making sure she's okay. It's just about making sure she's okay with that [the stigma when people talk about it]. Not only me but a couple of the coaches had conversations, ownership had conversations with her. She was okay.

"[As coaches] when you're dealing with players, you need to listen more than you talk, because you want to hear what they feel, not tell them what you feel. We try and listen, try and ask questions, so we know and they can share whatever they feel, and they feel lighter. Once you understand that, then you sort of see where you want to navigate and go with it, so you can bring them to a place where they are clear in their mind to perform."

As retiring out normalizes in T20s, so will the noise around it. Tactics will erode the stigma, and eventually, the explanations won't be needed and the sacrifices won't be counted. But when that day comes, a knock like this won't be a redemption story.