Delhi Capitals coach Ricky Ponting on Tuesday said that he and R. Ashwin are on the same page regarding the ‘Mankad’ dismissal.
“I think we’re both on the same page. He feels he did everything in the rules and laws of the game and he’s absolutely right. He’s saying, ‘What if it’s the last ball of the IPL, what if I’m bowling and the batting teams need two runs to win and the non-striker is charging halfway down the wicket? What do you expect me to do’,” Ponting said.
“There’s an argument there as well, but as I said to him, I would expect that he would hold on to the ball and not Mankad and tell the batsman to stay in his crease next time and see if he’s good enough to try and close the game out for us,” he added.
Ponting, however, said that feels that the non-striker batsman is cheating if he is venturing out of his crease when the bowler is about to deliver the ball.
His remark comes as the debate around ‘Mankad’ has once again started after Ponting earlier said that he would be talking to spinner Ravichandran Ashwin to not resort to ‘Mankad’ after the move created quite a stir last season when Ashwin ‘Mankaded’ Jos Buttler.
“It shouldn’t get to that stage anyway, batsmen shouldn’t be cheating. That’s what batsmen are doing, batsmen are actually cheating by trying to steal a yard or two here or there. It’s something that needs to be addressed. When it happened last year, immediately I addressed it with our team because once it happened once in the IPL I felt that every team was going to try and exploit the same thing,” cricket.com.au quoted Ponting as saying.
The former Australian skipper feels that the laws of the game should be changed in order to keep the nonstriker in their crease and not take undue advantage whenever a bowler is running up to bowl. “I think something has to happen with the laws of the game to make sure batsmen can’t cheat and there certainly shouldn’t be the ‘Mankad’ rule the way it is. I think if you bring in some sort of run penalty for the batsman if they’re deliberately leaving their crease and pinching ground that might be the way to go about it,” Ponting said.
