India's Deepti Sharma runs out England's Charlie Dean with a mankad that's sent shockwaves around the cricketing world. Photo / AP
India's Deepti Sharma runs out England's Charlie Dean with a mankad that's sent shockwaves around the cricketing world. Photo / AP
OPINION:
What happened at the Home of Cricket this week was a disgrace of the sport's own making.
The Mankad. The diabolical Mankad.
It's a legitimate dismissal, of course. It can't be banned and it can't be written out of the laws of cricket.
But after days of simmering abouta tail-end Charlie being controversially run out halfway across the world I've decided enough is enough. The Mankad must be stopped.
New Zealand cricket fans are familiar with losing at Lord's because of strange cricketing clauses - a certain 2019 game of cricket that must not be relived, lest trauma return, is the best example.
None of those who watched that game with bleary eyes will begrudge India's Deepti Sharma deciding to fake bowl and then whip the bails away from Charlie Dean, who was threatening to steal a single, and an unlikely victory for England.
Sharma did that in the knowledge that the International Cricket Council recently gave the full green light for the Mankad.
India's Deepti Sharma runs out England's Charlie Dean with a mankad that's sent shockwaves around the cricketing world. Photo / AP
In doing so, the ICC has written itself into a pickle.
I don't believe it's against the "Spirit of Cricket" to run out someone at the non-striker's end (the batter caught short is the one cheating). But it is most certainly against the "Spectacle of Cricket".
I cannot think of a worse way to win a game, or a worse way to watch a team win a game, and I've seen the footage of a Chappell in yellow stepping up and delivering an underarm to prevent a match-saving six being hit off the final ball.
Spectators flock to grounds in their millions each year to see a contest between bat and ball.
They do not flock to see a fake delivery followed by a bowler dislodging the bails.
The reality is that a Mankad dismissal takes little to no cricketing skill, it leaves crowds feeling hollow, and if it becomes a regular part of the game it is likely to further halt already slow over rates.
It is everything cricket should be trying to avoid.
By all means bowlers, try to Mankad someone, go on.
But every time you fake bowl a delivery it should be five penalty runs to the batting team, just as fake fielding now warrants a five-run penalty after a recent ICC decree.
That way Mankads are firmly discouraged, rather than banned.
If the batter is so obviously cheating by leaving the crease early, a Mankad wicket in exchange for five runs might be worth it for the fielding team.
But consequences for trying one means there won't be any speculative Mankads. In fact there will barely be any at all.
And peace (some would call it spirit) can return to the pitch, before the game we all love turns into a war fought with petty trickery.
