Delhi Capitals coach Ricky Ponting has said he will have to have a ‘hard conversation’ with Indian spinner Ashwin Ravichandran about running the non-striker out — a form of dismissal referred to as Mankading in cricket.
Ashwin caused an international debate in 2019 about the spirit of cricket after he dismissed England’s Jos Buttler at the non-striker’s end in an Indian Premier League game between Kings XI Punjab and Rajasthan Royals.
Enough is enough: Stop the outrage against ‘Mankading’ in cricket – it is just a run out
In the off-season, Ashwin has moved from Kings XI Punjab to Delhi Capitals where he will be working with former Australian captain Ponting.
Ponting was asked by the hosts of the Grade Cricketers Podcast how proud of Ashwin would he be if he secured the IPL title for Delhi Capitals with multiple ‘mankads’.
“I’ll be having a chat with him about, that’s the first thing I’ll do,” Ponting said.
“Obviously, he wasn’t in our squad last year, he’s one of the players we traded in for this year. Look, he’s a terrific bowler, and he’s done a great job in the IPL for a long period of time now. But I must admit watching that last season, as soon as it happened and he did that, I actually sat our boys down and said ‘Look, I know he’s done it, there’ll be others around the tournament who’ll think about doing this well but that’s not going to be the way that we play our cricket. We won’t be doing that’.
“So, that’s going to be a conversation and that’s going to be a hard conversation I will have to have with him, but I’m pretty sure he’ll take it on the chin. I think, even him, looking back now... probably he’d say it was within the rules of the game and that he’s right to do it, but it is not within the spirit of the game. Not in the way I want, at least with the Delhi Capitals anyway.”
Ponting then added that the tournament must look to dock runs for the batsmen who back up too much as a means to stopping it from happening.
“Just penalise (the batsmen who are backing up) some runs and they won’t do it again. I chatted to some of the match referees about it during last year’s IPL as well. If the umpires make a stance and do something to to actually warn the batsman that they might be cheating then I think that’s better than having an ugly incident of a Mankad,” he said.
You can listen to Ponting speak about it from 42:20 to 44:22 in this video below:
Ashwin had recently reignited the debate over running the non-striker out, calling for new sanctions. He said also, in fact, said offenders could be deducted runs or the bowling team could get a “free ball” and that off-field umpires should be more active.
“Just hope that technology will see if a batsmen is backing up before the bowler bowls a ball and disallow the runs of that ball every time the batter does so,” Ashwin said in one of a series of Twitter comments.
“Thus, parity will be restored as far as the front line is concerned.”
He said an alternative would be to give the bowler “a free ball” straight after batsmen has backed up too far, to add “some fairness”.
Ashwin did not explain what a free ball would be but there was speculation that it could be a bowling version of a “free hit” – no runs allowed, but the batsman can be dismissed.
Also read: Ashwin’s run out of Buttler nothing to do with spirit of cricket, says former umpire Simon Taufel
Ashwin’s recent comments came after International Cricket Council on Monday announced that TV umpires would watch for front-foot no balls during the one-day World Cup Super League starting Thursday.
That could enable them also to see if a batsman was out of his ground at the non-striker’s end.
The controversy erupted in 2019 when Ashwin, captain of Kings XI Punjab, checked his run as Rajasthan Royals batsman Buttler left his crease, and whipped off the bails.
It is worth noting that the rarely-used dismissal is well within the laws of the game.
The dismissal is named after Indian all-rounder Vinoo Mankad, who twice ran out Bill Brown at the bowler’s end during India’s tour of Australia in 1947. Ashwin called Mankad “an Indian legend” in his Twitter comments and added: “The Bill Browns should stop it!!.”
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