The bowler is permitted, before entering his delivery stride, to attempt to run out the non-striker. Whether the attempt is succesful or not, the ball shall not count as one of the over. If the bowler fails to run out the non-striker, the umpire shall call and signal Dead ball as soon as possible.Sri Lanka's Lahiru Thirimanne was caught backing up too far by Ravichandran Ashwin in the 40th over of Sri Lanka's innings at Brisbane. The young Indian off-spinner took the bails off and appealed. The Umpire would have had no choice but to uphold the appeal.
Quite sensibly, the Umpires sought confirmation from India's captain that India were indeed appealing under Law 42 (Fair and Unfair play). Virender Sehwag, captaining on the day, decided against it after consulting with Sachin Tendulkar, his senior professional.
The reactions have been mixed. There are those who think that India shouldn't have been quite so forgiving as a matter of principle. Others think India shouldn't have been quite so forgiving given that Thirimanne was well set and his wicket at that point in time would have hurt Sri Lanka badly. Still others think that India did the right thing. A few people see India's decision to withdraw the appeal as a symptom of some competitive short coming - the proposition is that maybe India don't want to win badly enough.
Thirimanne would have been out under Law 42. He would have effectively been dismissed for "unfair play", even though the score sheet would have said either run out or 'mankaded' (i've always thought that this term was unofficial short hand). Thirimanne kept taking an excessive start even after being warned.
The notion of fairness is important here. The ethical standard of dealing with unfairness is well established. The best example of this is another incident that involved mankading. Kapil Dev sent South Africa's Peter Kirsten on his way in the early 1990s. On that occasion, as the commentator in the clip below notes, Kapil took the bails off after giving Kirsten multiple warnings. Note how upset Kapil was after causing the dismissal. It gave the great all-rounder no pleasure. Getting Kirsten bowled, or LBW or caught at the wicket would have given him genuine pleasure.
In the incident in the game at Brisbane, Thirimanne was being unfair, and continued to be unfair. Had Ashwin warned him a couple of times, and then removed the bails, I am certain that Sehwag and Tendulkar would have confirmed Ashwin's appeal instead of withdrawing it.
Now, I know that a few people who take the reductive view that a dismissal is a dismissal is a dismissal, no matter what the method, will ask, well, does that mean that it should merely count as a warning the first time a batsmen edges a ball to slip and is caught? Well, obviously not. In all common dismissals - bowled, LBW, caught, stumped, run out, there is no notion of 'unfairness'. Why, there is nothing unfair about bowling a bouncer either, even though it is fairly common for batsmen to get hit by them. These days, convention has shifted to the extent that it is no longer considered unfair to bowl a bouncer at a tailender. For many years after World War II, well into the 70s, it was considered bad form to bowl bouncers at tailenders, because they were considered to be unskilled with the bat. With tailenders learning to defend better and putting a price of their wicket, this has changed.
Cricket is a better sport because it takes the idea of fairness seriously. Thirimanne came off poorly at Brisbane despite his fine innings, because he left people with the impression that he was either trying to take unfair advantage by back off too eagerly at the non striker's end, or that he simply didn't watch the bowler run in as most non strikers do. Either as a matter of competence, or as a matter or ethics, Thirimanne came off decidedly second best.
Not all laws in Cricket are created equal. Some are self-evident - like bowled, or caught or run out or stumped, some involve judgment about things that don't actually happen - like LBW, still others exist to preserve a standard of conduct - like Obstructing the field or Timed Out, or the whole gamut of issues addressed in Law 42. Just as there is an important qualitative difference between a streaky edge past third slip and a cover drive past cover's left hand (even if both result in 4 runs in the score book), there is a qualitative difference between the three modes of dismissal.
It required Sehwag's experience and Tendulkar experience to make sure that the game came off Ok in the tricky episode at Brisbane. Virender Sehwag had enough doubts about Ashwin's appeal to seek Tendulkar's counsel. Even though Ashwin was technically in the right, he was also guilty of bad form there. He should have warned Thirimanne first, publicly, in the presence of the Umpire. Had he done so, it is unlikely that the Umpire's would have sought confirmation from Sehwag about the seriousness of India's appeal.
There are lessons about conduct in this episode. Cricket tends to throw these up from time to time. Thats why it is such a great game in my view.
absorbing!
ReplyDeleteI was watching the sky sports commentators analyzing this incident during the innings break, and they had an interesting point. Basically, it centers around the following words in the rule you quoted above: "The bowler is permitted, before entering his delivery stride.." According to the definition, the delivery stride begins when the bowler's back foot lands. This makes it pretty much impossible for the bowler to mankad the batsman out. As Mark Butcher said, the only way a bowler can do this is to pre-meditate it, and run on without ever entering the delivery stride. The commentators then connected a few dots and concluded that as soon as the bowler's back foot lands, the batsman is free to take off. I'm not sure this extrapolation is within the spirit of the game, but you can see how we get to that conclusion.
ReplyDeleteSo, what about the incident at hand? Ashwin had clearly entered his delivery stride according to the definition above, and so his mankading wasn't legal anyway. The umpires didn't seem to know this, and it appears they would have given the batsman out had the Indians upheld the appeal. So, was Thirimanne the best informed of the lot? Replays show that on most deliveries, he was taking off after the bowler's back foot landed. I would really like to know what Thirimanne was thinking during all this. Maybe he knew he was right all along!
Amogh
Interesting perspective and well written!
ReplyDeleteI hope you don't mind if I share my 2 cents on the same.
1. ( And this one is for Amogh too ): Apparently, there has been a modification of Rule 42 last year. It deems that a bowler is now allowed effect the dismissal even as the bowling arm is poised to release the ball. (Earlier , as you stated, it was before the bowler enters his delivery stride).
2. Sehwag says that Ashwin did warn the batsman in the previous over, whereas Jayawardene is not sure about that. So it's Ashwin's word against Mahela, and Sehwag not supporting Ashwin puts the latter's credibility into question. Not a big issue, but just saying that from the bowler's viewpoint, a warning was given (not in the presence of the umpire, but still).
3. The way I think of it is, if it's a rule, why not follow it? Aren't rules put in place so that they could be followed? There is also a rule which states that the batsman should not unfairly attempt to steal a run during the bowler's run up. This is exactly what Thirimanne was doing (and doing often). Why is a bowler expected to follow the rule but not the batsman? Just because the "impact" (a wicket) is larger in 1 situation than the other (1 run)? In the context of a ODI, every run is important isn't it?
Should the batsman also warn the bowler at his arrival ,"Hey , I'm the sort who tries to steal runs, so don't mind it buddy. Knock me out if you can!"?
4. I think the "gentleman's game"/"spirit" is being overplayed and you're giving Sehwag too much credit. On one hand, he says the bowler did warn him, and then decides not to back his own bowler up when needed. Secondly, he goes on to say that , " ....because if we appealed and umpire gave him out, then somebody will criticise that, you know, that was not spirit of the game."
He was just addressing possible media back-lash and nothing else.
I just think it is so because it's commonplace now - many batsmen attempt to get a head-start from the non-strikers end, and way too few bowlers have the presence of mind to run them out (well within the rules of the game). Just because it's not done often, it appears "morally incorrect" on the bowler's side if he does! Do it a lot more often, and you'll have more batsmen sticking to the rules too, and such delicate situations not happening! :)