In the 12th edition of the India Premier League (IPL 2019) last year, Kings XI Punjab captain Ravichandran Ashwin had sparked controversy by mankading Rajasthan Royals' Jos Buttler -- who was batting remarkably well to make mockery of the 185-run target set by KXIP batting first -- without giving a proper warning during at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium in Jaipur. This was the first-ever incident of Mankad in the cash-rich T-20 League.
The 'Mankading' incident gave birth to a heated debate which is still ongoing. Some experts said that it was against the 'spirit of the game' and was 'unethical', while many believed that why always the batsmen should get the advantage and not bowlers. According to rules, bowlers at all levels of cricket are able to run-out the non-striker up to the instant at which they "would be expected to deliver the ball".
Star off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin has now come up with an alternative for the 'highly-debated' mankading, saying that the umpire make it a 'free ball' for the bowler, if a batsman at the non-striker's end is found getting out of the crease before the ball is delivered.
"Make it a free ball for the bowler. If the batsmen (batsman) gets out of that ball, the batting team will be docked 5 runs. Free hit adds to the drama for a batter, let's give a chance to the bowlers too," Ashwin said in a tweet.
"As of now everyone watches the game hoping that 'the bowlers will get smacked today'," he added.
Ravichandran Ashwin got traded from Kings XI Punjab to Delhi Capitals last year. DC coach Ricky Ponting recently once again raised the issue by saying that he will ask Ashwin to refrain from 'Mankading' a batsman.
“I’ll be having a chat with him about [Mankad], that’s the first thing I’ll do. 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.
“Look, he’s a terrific bowler, and he’s done a great job in the IPL for a long period of time now, but I must admit watching that last season, 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 well but that’s not going to be the way that we play our cricket. We won’t be doing that’,” Ponting said on The Grade Cricketer Podcast.