Ashwin should not have warned Finch

Ashwin should not have warned Finch. An interesting scene happened in The IPL between Royal Challengers Bangalore and Delhi Capitals. Ashwin who is now famous for running out Buttler in last year’s IPL at the non-striker’s end, did not runout Aaron Finch in that game. Instead, he just stopped bowling, looked at Aaron Finch and then returned to his bowling mark. Ashwin wanted to send a warning to the batsman that he must not go out of the crease before the ball is bowled. Should Ashwin have warned Finch? Wasn’t Finch taking advantage?

The game situation

It was a high scoring game. Delhi Capitals had piled up a mammoth 196 in their allotted 20 overs. An asking rate close to 10 an over is a tall order in any format of the game. Royal Challengers Bangalore will have to score more than a run every delivery. They cannot afford to waste too many deliveries and as such must always be on their toes for a quick single. This will result in the non-striker taking undue advantage of the perceived breaking the spirit of the game of not “mankading” the non-striker while he is in the process of cheating.

Aaron Finch, the RCB opener in his hurry to get back to the batting side, went out of the crease far too early. If one looks at the picture, he was at the least 2-3 feet away from the crease when Ashwin was still in his bowling stride. If he had continued, he would have reached half the pitch by the time the batsman gets to play the ball. In the case of a tight single, Finch would have easily reached the batsman end assuming that it was his call. As a result the opposing team would have lost an opportunity to take a wicket. This is plain cheating.

Ashwin’s warning to Finch

Ashwin instead of running out Finch, ended up warning the batsman. This is ridiculous. Presumably, he has been influenced by Ricky Ponting. Ponting, the saint who upholds the spirit of the game at all times that suits him. It seems Ponting seems to have threatened Ashwin not to repeat the Buttler incident again this year in the IPL. As we have seen before, Ponting is the worst offender of the spirit of cricket. He played in an era when the Australians were known the world over as the Ugly Aussies. I have given links to his various upholding of the spirit of the game in the other article.

To top this, there was an article in news.com.au written by James Matthey that Ashwin was rather afraid of Ricky Ponting. This really made me chuckle. He is someone who is defending Ricky Ponting who is the epitome of betraying the spirit of the game regularly. He seems to suggest that Ashwin will have to play wthin the rules prescribed by Ponting. Fortunately, Ashwin does not seem to be too bothered about Ponting and what would he do if he runs out another batsman at the non-striker’s end. He has since tweeted with the following comments.

Ashwin’s warning

“Let’s make it clear!! First and final warning for 2020. I am making it official and don’t blame me later on.

“@AaronFinch5 and I are good buddies btw.”

Kapil Dev supports running out non-strikers

One of the greats of the game, Kapil Dev, has come out in support of Ashwin and in favour of running batsmen out if they are backing up too far. This is something good to see. Likewise more players will have to support this so that this type of dismissal is not seen as a stigma.

“If a batsman is leaving the crease early, a one-run short rule is a must to stop this menace. I am personally not in favour of mankading and had warned batsman in South Africa for leaving the bowling crease early. If someone is mandaking, I can understand the ethics of the bowlers, where is the ethics of the batsmen?” he asked.

 “When we call that cricket is a gentleman’s game and such unethical stuff is happening, it should be applicable for both bowlers and batsman. The stakes are so high today in cricket and to make it a fair and square thing, you have to make it a level playing field,” Kapil Dev suggested.

“Both ICC and BCCI should make a rule that if the non-striking batsman leaves the bowling crease early, it will be counted as one run short. Just imagine if you leave the team needing one run to win a game off the last ball and if the non-striker leaves the crease before the bowler delivers the ball, it is nothing but cheating. It is time that the world governing body takes a good look at it and makes it mandatory to stop this Mankading,” Kapil Dev exclusively told Sportskeeda on Thursday.

Conclusion

Also, read this wonderful article on “Mankad”

 I would love to see Ashwin runout a few more batsmen in this IPL in the same fashion. To hell with the spirit of the game as long as batsmen do not respect the same.

As argued in these pages before, non-strikers must not be allowed to leave the crease until the ball has left the bowler’s hand. If he does so, the bowler must be free to run him out at the bowler’s end. The stigma attached to such a scenario must be completely removed. Only when that happens will the playing field will be slightly more balanced which is already heavily loaded in the favour of the batsmen.