Mankading Cricket’s Worst Virus

By Harsha Amarasinghe

Justifying mankading in cricket has been a very difficult task for years, but since we now live in a world where people like Mahindananda Aluthgamage claim that those who chased away former President Gotabhaya Rajapaksa would regret it on their deathbeds, perhaps anything can be said, done and justified.

Mankading on the other hand, has been a bit of seasonal flu where you'd have odd incident of mankading and people talk about it for a couple of weeks, and it would be forgotten until it's done again, unless of course you are Ravichandran Ashiwn.

There was an incident which involved former Sri Lanka off-spinner Sachithra Senanayake during the England tour back in 2014 where the non-striker Jos Butler was clearly warned a couple of time over his attempts to steal a yard or two before the ball was delivered - eventually he was dismissed through Mankading.

The hard-hitting English batsman incidentally was dismissed similarly off Ashwin during the Indian Premier League (IPL) and probably has a reputation for it, but since the duo became teammates at Kumar Sangakkara's Rajasthan Royals, they seemed to have become close buddies.

However, Mankading was once again in the headlines last week when India women's spinner Deepti Sharma opted to mankad English batter Charlotte Dean when they had just 17 runs to defend for the final wicket. Dean was devastated and left with tears as she was playing so well and nearly gave her team the win. While many people were busy talking about Mankading, they failed to see the fact that Dean still had the courage to go and shake hands with Sharma and entire team and that's not just pure class, it's also having huge courage. In men's cricket, Mankading has occurred, but had a game been finished that way, a hand shake between the two involved in the incident would be very unlikely.

Why this particular incident is much more significant than the other occasions is because this is the first time Mankading has taken place since the ICC choose to make it politically correct. Now Mankading is officially recorded as run-out which could have a huge impact on how the game will be played over the next few years.

When Gautam Gambhir and M.S. Dhoni were taking the game away from Sri Lanka in the blockbuster ODI World Cup final in 2011, there could have been numerous occasions Mankading could have occurred. When Ben Stokes single-handedly drew the World Cup final in 2019 to somehow actually claim it eventually, there were numerous opportunities to do that, but New Zealanders are just decent blokes. However, had Mankading occured in any of these occasions, it would have been considered at same level as the infamous Chappell underarm.

So what has the ICC done now? ICC have basically said, go ahead and do it more often because in the heat of a match trying to leave the crease early is something no one plans, but happens naturally. In the coming World Cup there will be more and more incidents of this nature.

When a team is struggling to get a wicket, they will be drawn to make use of Mankading as a strategy to get the breakthrough because in the most recent case, had Sharma delivered the ball naturally Dean would still be inside the crease. She purposely waited a couple of seconds to see her making the move with the momentum.

This will now be a strategy moving forward in cricket, especially in the shorter format. Mankading used to be a seasonal flu but now thanks to ICC it has become deadly virus.