Yesterday’s match played between Mumbai Indians and Delhi Capitals escalated the heat of battle over the Mankading rule. It is a matter of fight between the beliefs of cricket followers since this practice has come into force. Many of them think of it as an illegal act of running out a non-striker. But, it is legally correct and this practice surely has a space in the Laws of Cricket consisting of 42 rules.
Mankading rule states that “ if the non-striker steps out of the crease before the bowler bowls and the ball comes into play, the bowler has all the freedom and rights to run out the batsman(non-striker). Also, if the bowler fails to attempt to run out the non-striker, the umpire will call on his/her own and declare it as a dead ball as soon as possible”.
On 20th April, this clash of ‘Mankad’ happened again in the 13th match of IPL 2021 which was fought between Mumbai Indians and Delhi Capitals. MI’s all-rounder Kieron Pollard stuck to the laws and stopped DC’s Shikhar Dhawan right before he was about to bowl as Dhawan stepped out of the crease before the ball came into play.
Brad Hogg acts brave enough to take this to Twitter and takes a stand for the bowler’s rights of running out a batsman if he/she goes against the rules. He questions the opponents of ‘Mankad a batsman’ about why the bowler is criticised for doing something legal.
His tweet says “Still trying to work out why people say it is wrong to Mankad a batsman. You’re out of your crease before the ball has left the hand, you are trying to gain an advantage and you cry foul when a bowler does what is legal. #IPL2021.”
Still trying to work out why people say it is wrong to Mankad a batsman. Your out of your crease before the ball has left the hand, you are trying to gain an advantage and you cry foul when a bowler does what is legal. #IPL2021 pic.twitter.com/simuH13lHm
— Brad Hogg (@Brad_Hogg) April 20, 2021
Back in the 2019 edition of the Indian Premier League, Joss Buttler got Mankad by Ravichandran Ashwin, who played for Kings XI Punjab (now known as Punjab Kings). It led Ashwin to face some hatred as questions were raised over his gentleman behaviour.
