All eyes were out at Deepak Chahar as he brought into play the controversial Mankad runout. In the first delivery of the third ODI during Harare’s chase, the medium bowler imitated Ravichandran Ashwin by “Mankading” Zimbabwe’s opening batter Innocent Kaia at the non-striker’s end. With Kaia far outside of his crease, Chahar ran in and removed the bails before throwing the ball.
However, Chahar chose not to make a wicket appeal for Kaia, and the umpire signalled it as a “dead ball”. Chahar was gracious and intended it as a warning for the Zimbabwean who was attempting to get an unfair advantage by reversing course too far.
Watch the video here:
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What is Mankading?
“Mankading” is the term used when a bowler runs a batter out at the non-striker’s end when the latter is outside the crease. While the dismissal is allowed in the cricketing rule book, many consider this mode of dismissal to be against the ‘spirit of the game’.
In both domestic and international cricket, there have been numerous occasions where bowlers have either warned or dismissed hitters. Jos Buttler‘s dismissal by Ashwin in the IPL sparked a lot of controversy, with several veteran cricketers criticising Ashwin for it. The Indian spinner, though, managed to hold his ground and received assistance from a number of sources.
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The famous Mankading incident of 87 World Cup
One of the most famous incidents of this is from the 1987 World Cup, when West Indies pacer Courtney Walsh refused to ‘Mankad’ Pakistan’s Saleem Jaffer and it eventually cost his team the game.
“Not running Saleem Jaffar in the World Cup of 1987… people still recognize it and appreciate it,” Walsh had said in an ICC video. “I just couldn’t do it without a warning, and as a youngster the spirit of the game meant a lot to me. And because of the gesture and the way it was appreciated, that’ll be a memory that will always be with me.”
