Mankading
controversy (Named after India's cricketer Vinoo Mankad after he ran out Australian batsman Brown in December 1947) has been fanned by a few frustrated English commentators, sport
lovers and cricketers after England lost their 5 ODI series to Sri Lanka by a
thin margin of 3-2. The incident occurred when Sri Lankan spinner Charitha Senanayake
mankaded wicket keeper-batsman Jos Buttler in Birmingham ODI,
after having warned him twice prior to Mankading him.
As per
ICC playing condition, 42.11 revised in 2011, "The bowler is permitted,
before releasing the ball and provided he has not completed his usual delivery
swing, to attempt to run out the non-striker. Whether the attempt is successful
or not, the ball shall not count as one of the over. If the bowler fails in an
attempt to run out the non-striker, the umpire shall call and signal dead ball
as soon as possible."
Crying over Mankading by cricketers
as wrong and unethical, by itself is either cheating or ignorance of the rules
of the game. As cricketers or administrators or commentators they ought to know
the rules of the game. As any other rule of the game, the batsmen need not be
warned by a bowler akin to a stumping by wicket keeper.
Batsmen in the guise of
being injured in the game used to avail the services of runners while batting
which was misused by a few teams with bulky and/ or less fitness players.
Rightly, the rule was scraped by ICC in the early 2010’s. It has become a common
practice in the modern game for batsmen to accumulate runs by stealing quick
singles or twos just by tapping ball around. These stolen few runs play a vital
role in games with narrow wins. Incidentally, some unsporting and unethical
batsmen are taking unfair advantage by leaving the popping crease before the
ball is released to negate run outs. I
don’t see a difference between a batsman advancing down the pitch and getting
stumped with that of Mankading. Any batsman given out mankaded needs neither a debate nor approval of the
fielding captain in the guise of ethics and sportsmanship as it completely adheres
to the ICC rules.
Former England captain
Michael Vaughan’s justification that Jos Butler was not trying to steal a
single but was a few inches out of the propping crease is uncalled-for. If he
is not stealing a run, why is he out of the propping crease thrice? To my
dismay, the most irrational comment that appalled me had been from former
England spinner Graeme Swanne who said “The mankad is just wrong even though it’s
not illegal. It’s like cuddling your sister whilst watching a film”. Leaving
the Mankading episode aside, it shows his ethical and moral plunge as a human
being for having the ideas to cuddle a sister whilst watching modern era films mostly
with considerable explicit adult content.
Let’s look in at the double speaks of some of the modern day cricketer messiahs’
who moan and whine about the Spirit of Cricket, while morphing the favourable situations to
their advantage.
1. Current England
captain Alastair Cook, moaning
about the Buttler incident says "I've never seen it before in a
game. I was pretty disappointed with it to be honest with you. I'd hope I
wouldn't do it."
However, all of us
will be mistaken if we think either Cook or England have set high standards in
sportsmanship, which is definitely not the case. They defended players like
a. Stuart Broad
who stood his ground having edged the
ball to slip in a Ashes test match in Australia in 2013;
b. Jonathan Trott who scored off a ball that
had clearly slipped out of Ravindra
Jadeja's hand;
c. English cricketers and officials were silent on players
caught tampering with cricket balls, sometimes with mint-laden
saliva and sometimes with saw dust.
2. Former Sri Lankan
captain and current player Mahela Jayawardene, two years ago said "I don’t
play like that... I wouldn't have got the bails off in the first place, to be
honest. Try and keep it nice and clean.", when Ravichandran Ashwin
mankaded Lahiru Thirimanne in Brisbane. However, the same
cricketer defended his team mate after the match in Birmingham, "It is
fair enough, I think. We all need to play by the rules. If the other sides are
not going by the rules, then they're not playing by the spirit, so what can you
do?".
Furthermore, Mahela
was also a party to the unethical incident when a Sri Lankan bowler bowled
a no ball just to deny Virendra Sehwag a century.
Hence, it is quite obvious that some of the
unsporting cricketers and experts of the game only whine and moan about the
spirit of the game when they’re on the wrong side of an incident. ICC needs to give
more teeth to on field umpires and third umpire to implement the Mankading rule
on par with a NOBALL. If the bowler doesn’t run-out a batsman who is out of the
propping crease, but noticed either by the on field umpires or the third
umpire, one run shall be deducted from the team score as well as that of the
batsman. There need not be a warning from bowler for Mankading the batsman but
should be treated on par with stumping, to avoid giving unfair advantage to
batsmen.
