The most talked-about topic heading into IPL 2020 was Mankading after Delhi Capitals head coach Ricky Ponting had said that he would have a "hard conversation" with Ravichandran Ashwin over the type of dismissal and that it won't be allowed under his mentorship at the franchise. Five games later for the Capitals, Ashwin had a chance to run out non-striker Aaron Finch during the game against Royal Challengers Bangalore in Dubai on Monday. But following the words of the head coach, he left the Aussie with just a warning. Ponting could only smile from the dugout.
It was in the second over the game when Ashwin, bowling to Devdutt Padikkal, stopped whilst his action to catch Finch well outside the crease. Ashwin had all the time in the world to run out Finch, but he only left him with a warning.
Ashwin had last year Mankaded Jos Buttler, a dismissal which had left the whole of cricket fraternity divided over "spirit of cricket" debate. Ponting too did not approve of the dismissal, but at the same time is against batsmen unfairly stealing a yard.
During his conversation with Ashwin on his YouTube channel, Ponting opined that there should a way around this sort of dismissal.
"There's ways that you can actually stop batsmen cheating like that. 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. "You've only got to do that once at the start of a tournament and then all the players see it, and I guarantee that players won't be fudging any ground from there on.
"I chatted to some of the match referees about it during last year's IPL as well. If the umpires make a stance and do something to actually warn the batsman that they might be cheating, then that's better than having the ugly incident of a mankad."
Ashwin, meanwhile, dismissed Padikkal in the very next ball.
