One of the premier off-spinners in the world of cricket, Ravichandran Ashwin, has shared his thoughts about “Mankading,” in a lengthy post on his official Twitter account, in the aftermath of Afghanistan vs. Pakistan ODI recently. During the second ODI of the three-match series at the Mahinda Rajapaksa International Stadium in Hambantota, Fazalhaq Farooqi inflicted the run out at the non-striker’s end against Shadab Khan, sparking the controversy once more.
Ravichandran Ashwin is one of the biggest cricketers to use “Mankading” in recent times, quite famously during an IPL match in 2019 against Jos Buttler, which divided the cricketing world. While some fans stood in support of the off-spin bowler in his quest to not let batters gain an unfair advantage while bowling, the other fans were unhappy with him, calling him out for breaking the spirit of the game.
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In his recent tweet, the 36-year-old talked about a scenario where a bowler runs out either Virat Kohli or Steve Smith while backing up outside the crease, during a big game like the World Cup semi-final, which would make the discourse around “Mankading” more uglier than ever before.
The excerpts of Ravichandran Ashwin’s tweet read, “Imagine someone running out Kohli, Rohit, Smith, Root or any crucial batter at the non-strikers in the World Cup semi-final or a crunch game which will decide qualification. I am sure hell will break loose and there will be a character assassination campaign by some experts who still don’t agree with it and of course, fans that are on the receiving end.”
The former ICC Cricket World Cup winner from Team India also gave a solution about the scenario, which read, “There is only one solution, whoever be the batter and whatever be the magnitude of the situation, the batter needs to watch the bowler load the ball up and rotate his shoulder before taking off and if he doesn’t do that and gets out, we should applaud the bowler and tell the batsmen that he can do better.”
He also concluded his lengthy post with an emphatic reminder to the batters all over the world by saying, “Stay inside the crease and live in peace”.