Delhi Capitals (DC) head coach Ricky Ponting said he will having a "hard conversation" with off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin when they meet in UAE for the 13th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) regarding the use of 'Mankading' to dismiss the non-striker during matches.
Ponting wants to make it clear very early that the team he oversees has a strict policy to not indulge in the controversial form of dismissal.
Ashwin's act of running out Rajasthan Royals' (RR) Jos Buttler for backing up too far as captain of Kings XI Punjab (KXIP) in IPL 2019 had triggered a massive uproar and did polarise opinions last year. While many came out in his support as the form of dismissal is part of the laws, some cited the spirit of the game to crucify the move.
Ponting being of the latter category said on 'The Grade Cricketer Podcast' that there is no place for 'Mankading' in his book and Ashwin, who was traded post-IPL 2019, can't do so as long as he is playing for Delhi.
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“I’ll be having a chat with him about [mankad], that’s the first thing I’ll do,” Ponting said. "Obviously, he wasn’t in our squad last year, he’s one of our players that we tried to afford 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 anyway," he added.
Ponting, though, is against a non-striker trying to steal a few inches on his way to a run. He offered a solution he prefers for this problem.
"I think there are ways that you can actually stop batsmen cheating like that," Ponting said. “If the bowler was to stop, and the batsman was a foot out of his crease for instance, why don’t you just penalize 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 concluded.
The IPL 2020 begins on September 19 in the UAE.
