Polly Umrigar once recounted a tale of Vinoo Mankad’s professionalism. Someone in the Bombay Ranji team dressing-room in the early 1950s had inadvertently stepped upon Mankad’s cricket coffin. The great allrounder was furious and cornered the ‘offender’ before letting him off with a stern warning. “Never do that again, ever,” Mankad had said. The late Polly kaka had immediately developed an admiration for his illustrious senior team-mate. Mankad was India’s first cricket professional in the true sense of the word.
He was also the first Indian allrounder to achieve the double – 1,000 Test runs and 100 wickets. Mankad was, in fact, fastest to the landmark in world cricket at that time – 23 Tests. Kapil Dev reached there in 25 Tests. Ian Botham eventually became the quickest of them all, getting there in 21 Tests. Mankad didn’t see the England allrounder surpassing him. He died relatively young at 61 years of age in 1978.
Apologies for a lengthy prelude… But things need to be put in perspective. Mankad is not a Twitter trend with a hashtag, offering negative recollections. Unfortunately the mode of dismissal that Ravi Ashwin effected to Jos Buttler during an IPL fixture between Kings XI Punjab and Rajasthan Royals in Jaipur is called Mankading. The denigration is down to the Australian press of the 1940s that had coined the phrase. Mankad had run Bill Brown out twice during India’s 1947-48 tour of Australia, when Brown, the non-striker, had left the crease before the ball was bowled. Mankad had warned Brown first even though the law didn’t require that. And although the Australian press had vilified Mankad, Sir Donald Bradman stood by the Indian allrounder.
“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 the provision there which enables the bowler to run him out? By backing up too far or too early the non-striker is very obviously gaining an unfair advantage … there was absolutely no feeling in the matter as far as we were concerned, for we considered it quite a legitimate part of the game,” the Don wrote in his autobiography, Farewell to Cricket. Mankad had the support of the other Australian cricketers as well, although, when the dust settled, he had regretted his action. In hindsight, he realised his ‘mistake’.
Running out a batsman for leaving his crease at the non-striker’s end before the ball is delivered has always been well within the law. The Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) are the custodians of the Laws of Cricket and their Law 41.16 states: “If the non-striker is out of his/her ground from the moment the ball comes into play to the instant when the bowler would normally have been expected to release the ball, the bowler is permitted to attempt to run him/her out. Whether the attempt is successful or not, the ball shall not count as one in the over. If the bowler fails in an attempt to run out the non-striker, the umpire shall call and signal Dead ball as soon as possible.”
After Ashwin had whipped the bails off and appealed, the matter had been referred to third umpire Bruce Oxenford who adjudged that the bowler didn’t deliberately stop and in his action and waited for the non-striker to leave his ground. Buttler was declared out. Ashwin, too, claimed that there was no deliberate delay. The whole thing was down to Oxenford’s interpretation, who ruled in the bowler’s favour. Ashwin has been a vocal supporter of running out the non-striker in that fashion. In 2012, he had run Sri Lanka’s Lahiru Thirimanne out, as the latter stole a few inches at the non-striker’s end. But stand-in India captain Virender Sehwag, in consultation with Sachin Tendulkar, withdrew the appeal. “If that was soft, so be it,” Sehwag had said then. Both Sehwag and Tendulkar decided to follow the convention.
In every sport the written laws of the game live cheek by jowl with its unwritten rules. When Trevor Chappell bowled underarm to Brian McKechnie in the World Series Cup final at the MCG on February 1, 1981, there was outrage. Trevor did it under instruction from his captain and elder brother Greg, as New Zealand required six runs to tie the match off the final ball. It was perfectly legal at that time and Australia won the game. But they lost the fans. On Channel 9, former Australia captain Richie Benaud had described it as “disgraceful”. Even the prime ministers had waded into the controversy. Both Greg and Trevor were flayed for breaching convention. The ICC subsequently banned underarm bowling in limited-overs cricket, calling it “not within the spirit of the game”.
Making a U-turn on Buttler’s run-out, the MCC has now said they didn’t think that it was “within the spirit of the game”. “Having extensively reviewed the incident again, and after further reflection, we don’t think it was within the spirit of the game,” the MCC laws manager Fraser Stewart was quoted as saying by British newspaper The Telegraph. Mind, getting out in that fashion didn’t serve a novelty to Buttler. In 2014 at Birmingham, Sachithra Senanayake did it to the England ‘keeper-batsman during an ODI against Sri Lanka. The Edgbaston crowd booed the Sri Lankan offie, while then England captain Alastair Cook suggested that a “line had been crossed”. Buttler himself, however, had put things in perspective. “It is obviously batsman’s error,” he had said, adding: “If you walk out of your ground and someone wants to do it, it is in the laws of the game. It is all part of the game.”
Actually, there’s an ambiguity in the law that could be cleared up by empowering the bowling-end umpire to warn the non-striker once if he/she is trying to steal some inches. Even more importantly, the International Cricket Council must ban the word, ‘Mankading’. It’s poor that the game’s governing body has allowed its use for so long. Vinoo Mankad can’t be a Twitter hashtag with a negative connotation. Sport doesn’t teach us to disrespect.