The Mankad debate: do the laws of cricket need to change?

India completed a 3-0 series victory over England at Lord’s on Saturday in the third and final one-day international thanks to a controversial “Mankad” dismissal.

England required 17 runs to win, with one wicket left, when Indian bowler Deepti Sharma paused in her delivery stride to run out Charlie Dean at the non-striker’s end and secure the victory.

The mode of dismissal is often referred to as a “Mankad”, after Indian batter Vinoo Mankad, who was the first player to perform this particular type of run out in a Test match.

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England were “visibly aggrieved at the dismissal”, said the BBC, which is “within the laws of the game but seen by many as against the spirit of cricket”.

‘Craftiness not cricket’

Broadcaster and cricket fan Piers Morgan condemned the India team on Twitter. “Absolutely pathetic way to ‘win’ a cricket match,” he wrote. “The whole India team should be ashamed of themselves.”

Writing for The Telegraph, Scyld Berry said the cricket authorities will have to change the rules of the game. “Taking a wicket by ‘Mankading’”, argued Berry, is “craftiness not cricket”.

If everyone tried to use this form of dismissal “the sport of cricket would degenerate into niggliness, acrimony and a standstill”, he added.

In the Daily Mail, the former England player, coach and umpire, David Lloyd, also called for a change. “If the law was clarified, we’d avoid the furore that occurs every time someone is dismissed in this way,” he wrote.

Lloyd said it should be “obligatory for a bowler to warn a batter first” and the wording of the law should be tightened up so we get “something more concrete than what we currently have”.

As Lloyd explained, the law currently states that the batter has to stay in the crease until the moment the bowler “is expected to release the ball”.

“For me, that’s too ambiguous,” he said. “What we need is a physical description of that moment. It could be when the back foot lands, or when the arm reaches its highest point.”

‘A simple solution’

Not everyone was so concerned. The Telegraph’s Nick Hoult said that “the run-out of a non-striker by the bowler is no longer considered unfair play under the laws of the game” so Sharma “did nothing wrong”.

Hoult added that the Mankad is “sharp practice and the players know it which is why it only ever happens in a tight match when a result is on the line and they are desperate”.

Indeed, wrote Mike Atherton in The Times, there is a “simple solution” to the problem: “if non-strikers stayed in their ground, as the Law requires them to do, this debate would be cut short”.

As for the India team, they were unrepentant. “It is part of the game,” said captain Harmanpreet Kaur. “I don’t think we have done anything new, and it is in the rules. I think it shows awareness of what the batters are doing and I will back my players.”