IPL 2023: England captain Ben Stokes suggests interesting idea on 'Mankading'

While the cricketing world is still not united over the run-out at the non-striker end, England Test captain Ben Stokes has come up with a fascinating idea to ensure the batters do not look to earn an unfair advantage at the crease.

With the game of cricket evolving at a fast pace, a change in its laws is mandatory. Over the years, one of the most debatable topics in cricket has been "Mankading".

Dismissing a non-striker batter before a ball is bowled by running him out is referred to as Mankading. This dismissal happens when the non-striker is taking an illegitimate start before the ball is bowled. If the bowler sees the batter out of his crease before his/her delivery, the batter can be dismissed by dislodging the bails.

Mankading is very much legal

While it had always been a legal way of dismissal, it was mostly in the grey area as inflicting such a dismissal was considered against the spirit of the game. Plenty of incidents have taken place over the years, with the cricket fraternity divided in their opinion of this particular rule.

During the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2019, the Mankading issue took centre stage yet again when Ravichandran Ashwin, playing for Punjab Kings (PBKS) dismissed Rajasthan Royals (RR) batter Jos Buttler in this manner.

Then last year, Mankading became a hot topic of discussion when India bowler Deepti Sharma ran out Charlie Dean at the non-striker's end for leaving her crease too early. That saw the tourists clinch a historic 3-0 clean sweep in women's ODI series in England.

The Laws of Cricket is a code which specifies the rules of the game of cricket worldwide and is maintained by the iconic Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC). The MCC ended the debate surrounding Mankading by shifting it from Law 41 (Unfair play) to Law 38 (Run out). When Deepti mankaded Dean, the MCC law was already in place and yet the dismissal still attracted negative reactions.

In the ongoing edition of the IPL, there was an attempt to mankad during the latest meeting between Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) and Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) on Monday.

Needing five off the final over, RCB handed the ball to Harshal Patel, who removed LSG's Mark Wood and Jaydev Unadkat, leaving Lucknow needing one run off the final ball with one wicket in hand.

Patel attempted a non-strikers end run out on LSG tail-ender Ravi Bishnoi, who was miles ahead of his crease. The spinner left the crease early and in case the RCB pacer would have followed the rules during his attempt, Bishnoi would have given out and the match would have been decided in the Super Over.

But according to the rules, the bowler has to hit the bails before going through his bowling action, but Patel attempted the run-out after finishing his full action so that run-out wouldn't count.

Since Patel messed up the golden chance, he was forced to bowl the last delivery again and LSG clinched a nail-biting one-wicket victory.

Ben Stokes: '6 penalty points for batting team'

India's famous cricket commentator Harsha Bhogle was quick to point out the incident on Twitter, silencing the critics who are against Mankading. In the past, many former and present England and Australia cricketers have slammed the non-striker's law suggesting it is against the "Spirit of the Game."

Taking a dig at them, Harsha wrote in a Tweet that only a silly person will be against the idea.

"Bishnoi was leaving his crease early. Any silly people out there still saying you shouldn't run the non-striker out?" Bhogle questioned.

Meanwhile, England all-rounder Stokes replied to Bhogle's tweet and suggested that the batting team should get a six-point penalty if the non-striker left the crease early as that would end the controversy and batters may not get an unfair advantage.

"Thought's Harsha? Umpires discretion.. 6 penalty runs if obviously trying to gain an unfair advantage by leaving the crease early? Would stop batters doing it without all the controversy," Stokes tweeted.

Stokes, who currently plays for Chennai Super Kings (CSK), is not expected to play for at least a week in the underway IPL 2023 because of a toe injury.