IS PLAYING A VICTIM TO MANKADING IN CRICKET ETHICAL, SPORTING AND MORAL?

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.