New Delhi: Delhi Capitals head coach Ricky Ponting will not allow "Mankading" by his players at this year's Indian Premier League (IPL) and will discuss the issue with Ravichandran Ashwin who effected the controversial dismissal in last year's tournament.
Skippering Kings XI Punjab last year, Ashwin sparked a furore when he whipped the bails off at the non-striker's end to run out Rajasthan Royals batsman Jos Buttler who had left the crease early. While legal, the dismissal, named after India bowler Vinoo Mankad who ran out Australia's Bill Brown in similar fashion in 1947, is considered against the spirit of the game.
"I'll be having a chat with him about it, that's the first thing I'll do," former Australia captain Ponting told The Grade Cricketer podcast.
"Obviously, he wasn't in our squad last year, he's one of our players that we tried to afford to bring in this year. As soon as it happened and he did that, I actually sat our boys down and said 'look, I know he's done it, there'll be others around the tournament who'll think about doing this as well, but that's not going to be the way that we play our cricket, we won't be doing that'."
While many point out that batsmen at non-striker's end often take unfair advantage by setting off for a run early, Ponting suggested other ways of penalising them for such "cheating"."If the bowler was to stop and the batsman was a foot out of his crease for instance, you just penalise him some runs or something. Do that and then they won't do it again," Ponting said.
With India struggling to control the COVID-19 surge, this year's IPL will be played in the United Arab Emirates from September 19.
