Ever since Delhi Capitals (DC) head coach, Ricky Ponting, said he will be asking his team's new off-spin recruit Ravichandran Ashwin to not do 'Mankading' during the IPL 2020 in UAE, the debate around its legality and the spirit of the game has retriggered within the cricket circle.
“I’ll be having a chat with him about [mankad], that’s the first thing I’ll do,” Ponting had said on the 'The Grade Cricketer Podcast'. "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.
Dinesh Karthik, Ashwin's India teammate and Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) captain, publicly came out in support of Ashwin in the issue that started off after he ran out Rajasthan Royals' (RR) non-striker Jos Buttler during the last year's IPL.
Karthik said there is a genuine need to do away with the negative connotation of this form of the dismissal as well as the term 'Mankading' itself.
To Karthik, the description feels disrespectful to India's legendary all-rounder Vinoo Mankad when it should be Australia's Bill Brown, whom he ran out at the other end during India's 1948 tour to inspire the invention of the term, who should be called out instead for trying to steal crucial inches on his way to a run.
After making his views on the matter clear over social media, Karthik asked popular cricket voices to also take a stance on the matter.
Tagged in the tweet Karthik wrote, famous commentator, Sanjay Manjrekar, once again stood in favour of the bowlers.
"Agree 100%. Also, let's start a trend of looking at batsmen leaving the crease before ball is released in a negative way," Manjrekar quote tweeted.
The 13th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) begins on September 10 and runs till November 10 across Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Sharjah.
