Ricky Ponting, coach of IPL franchise — Delhi Capitals believes Mankading is not within the spirit of the game — and said he will have a conversation with spinner Ravichandran Ashwin, who will play for the Delhi-based franchise in the Indian Premier League (IPL 2020). R Ashwin was the captain of the Kings XI Punjab (KXIP) when he mankaded Jos Buttler. There on, he was highly criticized for his action.
Ravichandran Ashwin made headlines in IPL 2019 when he Mankaded by running Jos Buttler out at the non-striker’s end after the Rajasthan Royals batsman was found outside his crease even before Ashwin delivered the ball.
The former Kings XI Punjab’s Mankad act divided the sporting fraternity into two halves- some criticised Ashwin for his action terming it as illegal while quite a few backed the off-spinner, saying Mankading is within the rules and spirit of the game.
Ricky Ponting Will Not Let R Ashwin To Do Mankading For Delhi Capitals
Jos Buttler was also out similarly against Sri Lanka in 2014 when Sachithra Senanayake did the same. Mankading has happened only four times in Tests, five times in ODIs and only time in T20I and is named after Vinod Mankad.
R Ashwin played for Chennai Super Kings from 2008 to 2015, before short stints with Rising Pune Supergiants in 2016/17 and Kings XI Punjab in 2018/19 before being picked up by Delhi Capitals for 2020 IPL.
Ashwin defended his act of Mankading and said it’s within the rules of the game and he didn’t ‘know from where the understanding of the Spirit of the Game comes from’. Also, when asked by a fan if he would Mankad batsmen in IPL 2020, R Ashwin replied in the affirmative.
The six-foot-tall spinner all-rounder played 70 Tests,111 ODIs and 46 T20Is for India and has picked up 362,150 and 52 wickets respectively at decent averages.
Stressing that he believes R Ashwin will take his suggestion with open heart, Ricky Ponting said none of the Delhi Capitals bowlers will attempt Mankading during IPL 2020, which will be played from September 19 to November 10 in the Emirates. The tournament was slated for March 29 but was deferred to September 19 in UAE.
“I’ll be having a chat with him about [mankad], that’s the first thing I’ll do,” Ricky Ponting said while speaking on The Grade Cricketer Podcast.
“Obviously, he wasn’t in our squad last year, he’s one of our players that we tried to bring in 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 and he’s right to do it, but this is not within the spirit of the game, not in the way I want, at least with the Delhi Capitals anywaym,” he maintained.
Delhi Capitals have some big names like Shreyas Iyer, Prithvi Shaw, Ajinkya Rahane, Amit Mishra of India and Kagiso Rabada, Jason Roy and Shimron Hetmyer as international stars in IPL 2020.
Ricky Ponting Mentions Penalizing Non-striker Better Option
Ricky Ponting also said there are better ways to stop batsmen from gaining an unfair advantage at the non-striker’s end than ‘having the ugly incident of a Mankad’.
“I think there’s ways that you can actually stop batsmen cheating like that,” he said.
“If the bowler was to stop, and the batsman was a foot out of his crease for instance, why don’t you just penalise him some runs or something? Then they won’t do it again.
“You’ve only got to do that once at the start of a tournament, and then all the players see it, and you can guarantee the players won’t be fudging any ground from then on.
“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 warn the batsman that they might be cheating, then that’s better than having the ugly incident of a mankad,” he said.
Vinoo Mankad, who was known for his world record opening partnership of 413 runs with Pankaj Roy in 1956 was also infamously associated with Mankading which happened for the first time when he caused a major controversy in 1947/48 on India’s tour of Australia when he ran out Bill Brown in the second test.
Mankad while bowling broke the wicket at the non-striker’s end when Brown was out of crease backing striker.
Such an act although not a violation of the laws of cricket, some considers it unsporting and against the spirit of cricket.
However, Mankad warned Brown before dismissing him and likewise, Courtney Walsh also received praise for warning rather than dismissing Saleem Jaffer who was the non-striker during 1987 World Cup.