Caught in motion – All the Mankading dismissals in Test cricket
Recently Delhi Capitals head coach Ricky Ponting ignited a fresh debate on one of cricket’s hot topics, the Mankading. While the dismissal is perfectly legal, it is often seen as a clandestine method to get a batsman out. The cricket world remains divided on their opinion of this type of a dismissal. Let’s take a closer look at its history.
Mankading is nothing but an act of bowler to penalize/dismiss a non-striker who is backing up even before the bowler has completed his delivery stride. This dismissal has been named after the former Indian cricketer Vinoo Mankad who ran out the Australian opener Bill Brown in the 1947 Sydney Test match. Non-strikers being run out when backing up by the bowlers wasn’t something new by the 1940s but Brown’s dismissal was first of its kind in Test cricket. Since then the term has been added into cricket’s lexicon. However, many have objected to it and profess that it should instead be called ‘Browning’ after the batsman involved.
Only a month before this incident, Mankad had run out Bill Brown in the same fashion during a first-class match between Indians and Australia XI also hosted by the SCG. The Australian didn’t learn a lesson from it and made the same mistake in the Test series. Mankad, in fact, warned Brown before runout him during the tour match. Brown could consider himself lucky of not having this dismissal named after him despite being the only player to be dismissed twice in this manner in the history of first-class cricket.
Other ‘Mankaded’ batsmen
Since Bill Brown, only three players have been run out by a bowler while backing up in Test cricket. Another Australian Ian Redpath suffered this fate during a Test match in 1969. Charlie Griffith of West Indies caught Redpath moving out of his crease even before he had completed his delivery stride. England’s Derek Randall and Pakistan’s Sikander Bakht are the other two players to follow the route of Bill Brown. There have been three such incidents in the ODI format between 1975 and 1992.
Sachithra Senanayake revived the ‘Mankad’ act in 2014 when he ran out Jos Buttler in an ODI at Edgbaston. The Sri Lankan off-spinner had sent a couple of warnings through the ODI series. Buttler, later in 2019, became the first player to be run out backing up by a bowler in the IPL. The off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin was the bowler who had Buttler’s innings coming to an end. Ashwin had previously attempted a similar dismissal in an ODI against Sri Lanka but the Indian captain Virender Sehwag had retracted the appeal on that occasion.
