Ashwin’s Mankading incident: Is it illegal?

If you are staying in touch with this year’s IPL you would definitely know about Ashwin’s Mankading incident. The incident happened in the match between King XI Punjab and Rajasthan Royals. The Kings XI were defending and Ashwin was bowling. Suddenly Jos Butler who was on the running side got outside the crease even before the ball had been bowled and Ashwin Mankaded him. Jos Butler had to go and sit in the dugout. But is the Mankading incident illegal? We are going to discuss about that in this blog!

Mankading Origins

Mankading’ came into existence when former India all-rounder ran out Bill Brown, who was the non-striker and out of his crease, in the tour of Australia in 1947 was gotten out. The name of the bowler was Mankad, thus the name Mankading.

Like Ashwin now, even Mankad drew flak for the tactic but the then Australia skipper, the legendary Don Bradman, had defended the Indian.

“For the life of me I cannot understand why. The laws of cricket make it quite clear that the non-striker must keep within his ground until the ball has been delivered.

“If not why is there the provision which enables the bowler to run him out?”, he said.

Since then, Ashwin’s Mankading incident is not the only one that has taken place.

Some of the Mankading incidents are Peter Kirsten by Kapil Dev in 1982, Jos Butler by Sachitra Senanayake and many more. It seems like Butler doesn’t like to stay within the crease as he is the only person involved twice in the Mankading incident.

Ashwin has been receiving a lot of heat upon the incident. Isn’t it also the fault of the batsmen who is always trying to get ahead of the crease to steal a run. Only Ashwin can’t be blamed.

Ashwin won’t face any serious charges for the incident but the heat he has received over the incident is really unnecessary and bad.

Well, we can just hope that such incidents don’t happen much in the World of Cricket. Its just a game and should be played in such spirit.