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IPL 2020 | Delhi Capitals coach Ricky Ponting reveals what he will speak to Ashwin about ‘Mankading’
One thing that stood out about Ashwin’s tenure with KXIP was his dismissal of Jos Buttler, when he ‘mankaded’ the wicket-keeper batsman in a match against Rajasthan Royals. It sparked a controversy but Ashwin has stood his ground firm.
The Delhi Capitals performed well last season to make it to the knock-outs and the team will be looking to do the same in this season of the IPL. DC have added a bunch of talented new faces to their squad and have been boltered by the addition of some senior Indian international players. One of them is veteran off spinner Ravichandran Ashwin, who was traded in from Kings XI Punjab.
One thing that stood out about Ashwin’s tenure with KXIP was his dismissal of Jos Buttler, when he ‘mankaded’ the wicket-keeper batsman in a match against Rajasthan Royals. It sparked a controversy but Ashwin has stood his ground firm since then and said that ‘mankading’ is within the rules of cricket and it should be allowed as it deters non-strikers from taking undue advantage by backing up too far.
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But there is a big section of the cricketing fraternity that believes the ‘mankading’ mode of dismissing a batsman is against the spirit of the game and it includes Ashwin’s coach at DC, former Australia captain Ricky Ponting. The Aussie in a latest podcast has said that he would speak to Ashwin and wouldn’t want the latter to do it in this season.
“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,” Ponting said while speaking on ‘The Grade Cricketer’ Podcast.
“...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’.” The IPL starts on September 19 in the UAE, moved out of India due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The senior Indian bowler had defended his act at that time, saying it was within the rules of the game.
But Ponting feels the controversial mode of dismissal is against the spirit of the game.
“But this is not within the spirit of the game, not in the way I want, at least with the Delhi Capitals anyway,” he said.
The 45-year-old legendary batsman, who played 168 Tests for Australia between 1995 and 2012 and scored 13378 runs, was all praise for Ashwin’s skills though. “Obviously, he (Ashwin) wasn’t in our squad last year, he’s one of our players that we tried 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,” he said.
Ponting, also one of the most successful captains ever, said he is pretty sure Ashwin will take his instructions sportingly.
He said there are other ways to stop batsmen from gaining unfair advantage at the non-striker’s end than “having the ugly incident of a Mankad”.
“I think there are ways that you can actually stop batsmen cheating like that. If the bowler was to stop, and the batsman was a foot out of his crease for instance, why don’t you just penalise 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.” Ponting said he has even had discussions with match referees about it during last year’s IPL. “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.”
The dismissal is named after former India spinner Vinoo Mankad who ran out Australia’s Bill Brown in similar fashion in 1947.
(with PTI inputs)
