Here's how the term 'Mankad' originate in the game of cricket

‘Mankad’ or ‘Mankading’ has hogged the headlines for all the wrong reasons since its origination. While there’s a set of cricketing fraternity which supports ‘mankading’, there’s another group too which completely disagrees. Amid the never-ending debate on the legality of ‘mankading’, Ravichandran Ashwin‘s ‘Mankad’ act in previous IPL added more fuel to the fire.

The debate on the legality of ‘mankading’ was infuriated yet again and since then, it has emerged as one of the hot topics to discuss in the current cricket scenario. ‘Mankad’ is a form of dismissal where the bowler runs out the batsman at the non-striker’s end when he finds the batsman guilty of leaving the crease even before bowling the delivery.

MCC’s Law 41.16.1 states that the non-striker is liable to be run out if he is out of his/her ground at any point of time before the release of the ball. The much-talked-about term ‘Mankad’ originates from the name of the legendary late Indian bowler Vinoo Mankad, who played Test cricket for India for 13 years, between 1946 and 1959.

The origination of Mankad dates back to 1948

The incident dates back to 1948 when Mankad took the bails off and ran Australia‘s Bill Brown out after finding him wandering out of the non-striker’s crease. Incidentally, Mankad had already run the very same batsman out at the non-striker’s end in a warm-up game before the series.

The ‘Mankading’ act has varied opinions as many cricketers consider it against the spirit of the game. While the Australian press had censured Vinoo Mankad for his act, Sir Donald Bradman was in favour of the Indian.

“For the life of me, I cannot understand why (Mankad is being criticized). The laws of cricket make it quite clear that the non-striker must keep within his ground until the ball has been delivered. If not, why is the provision there which enables the bowler to run him out?,” Sir Donald Bradman wrote in his book Farewell to Cricket a quoted by Sportscafe.

“Mankad was an ideal type, and he was so scrupulously fair that he, first of all, warned Brown before taking any action. There was absolutely no feeling in the matter as far as we were concerned, for we considered it quite a legitimate part of the game,” he further wrote.