Aussie Great Ricky Ponting Wants to Put an End to Mankading

Looks like India off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin will have to use the old fashioned way of getting wickets…those that do not involve mankading. Last year’s otherwise fantastic IPL tournament had one moment that left both fans and cricketers scratching their heads. Jos Buttler was batting at 69 and looking extremely dangerous when in came Ashwin who had Butler run out at the non strikers end. All of this was achieved without Ashwin bowling a single delivery.

The dismissal gets its name from another Indian spinner, Vinoo Mankad who had whipped off the bails resulting in a run out dismissal for Australia’s Bill Brown in 1947.

Butler was not pleased and has opened up about the incident with the following statement “If you look at the footage, probably the wrong decision was made because at the time he was expected to release the ball I was in my crease. At the time I was really disappointed with it. I didn’t like the style of it. I just thought it was a bad precedent at the start of the tournament. For the tournament itself. It was a really disappointing way to start the tournament. So, I didn’t like what happened and I didn’t agree with it, but what can you do? After a day or so I was pretty relaxed about it and I’ll make sure it never happens again. It won’t happen again,” Jos Buttler, who was also Mankaded in an ODI vs Sri Lanka in 2014, told ESPNCricinfo.

“What was more disappointing is that suddenly, over the next two games, I found myself being really conscious of it and it is quite distracting. It is so rare that you’re not normally thinking about it. I must be the only person to get out twice in that way. It distracted me for the next couple of games which is why it was nice to get some runs in the win and get back to thinking about batting and not worrying about how I back up at the non-striker’s end.”

Delhi Capitals head coach Ricky Ponting has made it very clear that he will not allow Ashwin to use the controversial dismissal as it is against the spirit of the game. While speaking on ‘The Grade Cricketer’ Podcast, the Aussie great had the following to say “I’ll be having a chat with him about (Mankading), that’s the first thing I’ll do. That is going to be a hard conversation I will have with him. I think, even him, looking back now, probably he’d say it was within the rules and he’s right to do it. Watching that last season, as soon as it happened, 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’.”