That Ricky Ponting is going to have a “hard conversation’’ with Ravichandran Ashwin on a matter pertaining to the “spirit of the game’’ is laughable. The combative cricketer as a member and captain of the Australian team stretched the laws of the game to their very limit and sometimes even transgressed them so he should be the last person to give a lecture on the spirit of the game – in this case the Mankading of a batsman.
In his capacity as coach of the Delhi Capitals Ponting is going to tell Ashwin, not to Mankad non-strikers at the IPL scheduled to commence in the UAE next month. Last season Ashwin while playing for King’s XI Punjab had run out Rajasthan Royals’ Jos Buttler at the non-striker’s end before delivering the ball as the batsman had left the crease. Now Ponting says he will not allow a repeat of the same. “I am going to have a hard conversation with him and while he may say it was within the rules this is not within the spirit of the game.’’
In the first place the spirit of the game works both ways and the onus is on the batsman too not to take any unfair advantage. In any case, there is a law now governing this kind of dismissal that allows it so where is there a dispute and where does the spirit of the game come in? Ashwin has always been a firm believer that non-strikers shouldn’t gain an unfair advantage. Non-strikers stepping out from the crease before the ball is delivered has become some sort of epidemic, particularly in T-20 cricket with its compressed format.
Ponting himself has called the batsman trying to steal a run this way as “cheating.’’ While advocating other alternatives he says “There are ways you can actually stop batsmen cheating like that. If the bowler was to stop and the batsman is a foot out of his crease for instance why don’t you just penalize him some sort runs or something? Then they will not do it again. If the umpires take a stance and warn the batsman that they might be cheating, then that’s better than having an ugly incident of a Mankading dismissal.’’ By the same token is the bowler warned when he oversteps in sending down a no-ball. No, he is straightaway pulled up and he and the fielding side are penalized a run.
Ashwin’s decision to stop in his delivery stride and run out Buttler, who wasn’t watching the bowler and was well outside his crease, polarized the cricket community at the time. But the rules are clear that the non-striker may leave the crease only after the ball is delivered so as not to gain an unfair advantage. Ashwin’s stand has always been clear. “It’s there within the rules of the game. I don’t understand where the spirit of the game comes.’’
Perhaps it is Ashwin who should be lecturing Ponting who didn’t exactly cover himself with glory while leading Australia. One has only to recall his appalling behavior in the Sydney Test against India in January 2008. Nothing more needs to be said.