Dubai, (Samajweekly) Spinner Ravichandran Ashwin and his Delhi Capitals coach Ricky Ponting seem to have found middle ground in their views on Mankading — the act of a bowler running out the batsman at the non-striker’s end before delivering the ball.
Ponting had earlier said before travelling to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to join the rest of the team for the upcoming IPL that he will be having a discussion with Ashwin on the topic, on which the two had expressed radically opposing view points.
While Ashwin had said that he would do it again, as he famously did last year to dismiss Jos Buttler while captaining the King’s XI Punjab, Pointing was against running out the batsman in that fashion.
“He (Ashwin) made me get on a podcast with him when I first arrived here to have a good open chat about it,” Ponting told Cricket.com.au.
“I think we’re both on the same page. He feels he did everything in the rules and laws of the game and he’s absolutely right.
“He’s saying, ‘What if it’s the last ball of the IPL, what if I’m bowling and the batting teams needs two runs to win and the non-striker is charging halfway down the wicket? What do you expect me to do?’,” the former Australia skipper said.
While Ponting still believes that the bowler shouldn’t resort to Mankading the batsman in that situation, it shouldn’t even happen in the first place.
“There’s an argument there as well, but as I said to him, I would expect that he would hold on to the ball and not Mankad and tell the batsman to stay in his crease next time and see if he’s good enough to try and close the game out for us,” he said.
“It shouldn’t get to that stage anyway, batsmen shouldn’t be cheating. That’s what batsmen are doing, batsmen are actually cheating by trying to steal a yard or two here or there. It’s something that needs to be addressed.
“I think something has to happen with the laws of the game to make sure batsmen can’t cheat and there certainly shouldn’t be the rule the way it is. I think if you bring in some sort of run penalty for the batsman if they’re deliberately leaving their crease and pinching ground that might be the way to go about it,” he said.
Ponting said things continuing the way they are is not a good look on the game. “I’m sure those discussions are happening at the moment because I don’t think it’s a good look on the game. I think something is going to have to change,” said the former Australia captain.
