Charlie Dean (run out) Sharma 47

September 25, 2022 5:14 PM

In 1947, Vinoo Mankad ran out Bill Brown at the bowler's end of the crease, giving his name to the unusual (and controversial) dismissal. Most recently, Deepti Sharma, at Lord's, ran out Charlie Dean to win the match for India. So, is it within the rules of cricket? Or is it unsporting?
posted by Fiasco da Gama (32 comments total)

Hmmm interesting how unwritten rules or "sportsmanship" always seem to be examples of traditional power dynamics 🤔
posted by muddgirl at 5:52 PM on September 25, 2022 [5 favorites]

Don Bradman wrote of the incident which gave this dismissal the name "Mankad": “For the life of me, I can’t understand why [the press] questioned his sportsmanship. 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? By backing up too far or too early, the non-striker is very obviously gaining an unfair advantage,”

MCC released a statement about Sharma's dismissal of Dean which says in part "MCC's message to non-strikers continues to be to remain in their ground until they have seen the ball leave the bowler's hand. Then dismissals, such as the one seen yesterday, cannot happen.

Whilst yesterday was indeed an unusual end to an exciting match, it was properly officiated and should not be considered as anything more."
posted by blob at 6:11 PM on September 25, 2022 [2 favorites]

I don't know shit about cricket, but I KNEW this was going to get termed "unsporting" the second I noted that the team that won were brown, and the team that lost were white.
posted by nushustu at 6:29 PM on September 25, 2022 [2 favorites]

In some ways this is about the weird intersection between competitions and entertainment - ie spectator sport.

A mankad is deeply anti-climactic for those watching a game of cricket, a sport which I suggest often provides good narratives.

Compare it to the excitement someone being bowled out, caught, or run out. Indeed, these outcomes are typically the result of the genuine effort of the players involved, rather than relying on compliance and non-compliance with the rules, or indeed, the consequence of cheating.

Hence spectators find the application of this rule disappointing and some look for a way to critique it.

Sports fans in general I think rankle against the consequences of breaches of the rules that give an advantage to one team or the other, but don't add to the excitement of watching. Think of how irate they get when officials have to get involved in adjudicating these things.
posted by jjderooy at 6:48 PM on September 25, 2022 [8 favorites]

I’m only interested in what Zaltzman thinks.
posted by badbobbycase at 6:53 PM on September 25, 2022 [3 favorites]

I don't know shit about cricket, but I KNEW this was going to get termed "unsporting" the second I noted that the team that won were brown, and the team that lost were white.


FWIW, in the case of Mankad'ing, at least, the "non-sporting" terminology definitely pre-exists this specific instance. So I don't think this specific instance is particularly racist.

Now the term Mankad itself, however, may well be - it's an entirely legal thing that is known exclusively for the brown person who executed the action on a white cheating person, so.. yeah.
posted by coriolisdave at 6:59 PM on September 25, 2022

Just in case there's anyone else who read all the descriptions and was still “huh?”, here is video: Women’s CricZone on Twitter: "What’s your take on this? A: What Deepti did was spot on! B: Hey mate, where is the spirit of the game? C: Stay within the laws (crease) or get OUT! Comment below! #ENGvIND | #DeeptiSharma | #ThankYouJhulan https://t.co/CjWxr0xkiz" / Twitter
posted by scruss at 7:40 PM on September 25, 2022 [2 favorites]

I think bowlers should be more aggressive with the application of the mankad.

Batters certainly push the envelope when to comes running between the wickets - we teach our younger players to run aggressively - "turn the dots into ones, the ones into twos, the twos in threes". We teach them to slide their bat through the crease so as to extend the safe area. We teach them to back up as the ball is released by the bowler to gain advantage when running. If they aren't smart enough to watch the ball out of the bowler's hand before leaving the crease, they get what they deserve.

There's no reason to my mind that bowlers shouldn't use every weapon in the arsenal to get a batsman out. Give me a bowler who is always hustling to remove the batsman and I'll give you a team that wins more than it loses. (I'd also want batsmen who run hard between the wickets.)
posted by awfurby at 7:47 PM on September 25, 2022 [4 favorites]

the "non-sporting" terminology definitely pre-exists this specific instance. So I don't think this specific instance is particularly racist.

Defining certain legal actions as "non-sporting" becomes a way to show that some players (in our society, typically white players) come from the "proper" backgrounds. It's a way to maintain a heirarchy over lower status players. Especially for an international game it says: play the game OUR way because YOUR way is uncivilized. YOU are uncivilized.
posted by muddgirl at 7:50 PM on September 25, 2022 [2 favorites]

Some background on why this particular instance seems to have caused such a hullabaloo, and I don't think racism is a major part:

India batted first and did not score a high total; England was favoured to win. However, Indian bowling started very well and England lost their top batters cheaply. By the halfway point of the England innings, India was firmly on track to win. But English lower-order improbably held on. This match was held at Lord's in London and England were 0-2 down going into the final match of the series. England only had one wicket left but could smell victory. India thought they had sealed the deal but just could not get the last batter out. Which is when this dismissal occurred. It was decisive in the literal sense of the word. England were on the verge of avoiding a whitewash (heh) and this unconventional method, typically threatened but rarely carried out, denied them that.
posted by daksya at 9:47 PM on September 25, 2022 [5 favorites]

Whereof I know not, thereof I must remain silent. I think Abraham Lincoln said that.
posted by y2karl at 11:11 PM on September 25, 2022 [2 favorites]

I've tried understanding cricket and I keep failing. I want to know because my Indian colleagues are always abuzz about this that or the other and it would help me understand another facet of the cultures of the people I manage.

Also, really happy to see that baseball isn't the only sport where they go on and on about the unwritten rules.
posted by drewbage1847 at 11:15 PM on September 25, 2022 [1 favorite]

I'm on the margins of cricket-interest, in a cricket-obsessed country, but I find the mankad question absolutely fascinating because to me it's revealing about what different people think sport is and what games are. Whether it's (as jjderooy says) competitive compliance with a set of established-published laws, where anything not specifically banned is fair, in which individuals or teams vie to interpret them for advantage, exemplified at the extreme by the kind of expense and effort that goes into Formula 1 racing, or, on the other hand, whether it's participation in a more expansive set of creative cultural norms and assumptions about games, and human play, and by extension to life, of which the agreed Rules are a subset, at extreme of which is a Dungeons & Dragons session between good friends. It's a revealing question to ask whether you see doing Sport as simply the negative, but testable, quality of 'not cheating', or a positive quality of displaying inherently untestable undefinable 'sporting' behaviours. Neither is right, neither is sufficient.

In 1981 an Australian bowled an underarm delivery to win against NZ, and even though it was acknowledged by all as a legal ball (at the time), it's become a well-known cultural shorthand in both countries for bad faith!
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 11:56 PM on September 25, 2022 [2 favorites]

is it within the rules of cricket?

No. But only because cricket doesn't have rules.

Cricket has laws.
posted by flabdablet at 12:35 AM on September 26, 2022 [2 favorites]

Defining certain legal actions as "non-sporting" becomes a way to show that some players (in our society, typically white players) come from the "proper" backgrounds. It's a way to maintain a heirarchy over lower status players. Especially for an international game it says: play the game OUR way because YOUR way is uncivilized. YOU are uncivilized.

This analysis doesn't fit the bodyline controversy very well. At the time, it was well understood by all concerned that England was civilization and the Colonies were the contemptible rabble.

The England team invented bodyline bowling, which pretty much every commentator of the day considered horribly unsporting, specifically because it was unacceptable for the rabble to have a player who consistently scored far more points than his presumed cultural betters. Maintaining the hierarchy required beating the oiks, and if sportsmanship had to go by the board to make that happen - well, what's a chap to do? One couldn't let one's colonies win.
posted by flabdablet at 12:45 AM on September 26, 2022 [1 favorite]

Controversial match ending with elements of [un]sporting behaviour? This year's Bledisloe Cup between Oz and NZ saw Australia snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by annoying the referee with time-wasting. 90sec Exec Summ. - - - 9 minutes of pundit.
But that backing-up run out of the non-striker by Deepti is gold: batter clearly off with the fairies. Thanks for the video scruss.
"backing-up run out of the non-striker" is that English? I "had" cricket [silly mid-off, cover point] as part of my very expensive education in the last century but treated it mostly as a good botany walk spoiled.
posted by BobTheScientist at 2:20 AM on September 26, 2022 [2 favorites]

I think part of the problem is that the penalty for being out of your crease is the highest: your wicket. By comparison, if a bowler is out of their crease when bowling, the penalty is just a single run and having to bowl again.
Also, the enforcement is different; if a bowler is out of their crease, then the umpire makes the decision; but umpires do not have jurisdiction over a batsman being out of their crease, so the only enforcement is by the fielding team - and the only thing they can do is to run the batsman out.
I know why the penalties and the enforcement are like that, because of the way the sport is structured, but the result is that a common minor error gets only occasional enforcement, and with a massive penalty; so when that happens it doesn't feel proportionate.
posted by vincebowdren at 3:00 AM on September 26, 2022 [2 favorites]

Solution: create a "balk" law. Because that bowler has to balk to do that, no?

(Also, it's not unlike this: Goins' hidden ball trick fooling Frazier)
posted by chavenet at 3:12 AM on September 26, 2022 [3 favorites]

Solution: create a "balk" law. Because that bowler has to balk to do that, no?

I'm not sure that would work in cricket; it's a pretty fundamental principle that a batsman has to be inside their crease otherwise the fielding team can run them out.
And apart from the principle, if you remove an enforcement mechanism then you probably have to substitute it with a different enforcement mechanism; would you need the umpires to start adjudicating on the non-striking batsman's placement?
posted by vincebowdren at 3:45 AM on September 26, 2022 [1 favorite]

I’m only interested in what Zaltzman thinks

Here you go:

Do you have any sympathy for a batter run out by the bowler in their delivery stride?

Not really, but it's a dissatisfying way of taking/losing a wicket, given that the ball has not been delivered, so no cricket involved. Would rather see runs penalty (big enough to deter), or a batting equivalent of a no ball (runs not counted if non-striker leaves crease early).
posted by Pendragon at 5:03 AM on September 26, 2022 [4 favorites]

In 1981 an Australian bowled an underarm delivery to win against NZ, and even though it was acknowledged by all as a legal ball (at the time), it's become a well-known cultural shorthand in both countries for bad faith!

...

The England team invented bodyline bowling, which pretty much every commentator of the day considered horribly unsporting

Bodyline was a widely discussed historic grievance when I went to school in South Australia many, many years after the 1932-33 Ashes series, and there are still no doubt many pubs in both Australia and New Zealand where one could start a fight by bringing up the underarm incident in an indelicate manner. What people from non-cricketing countries may not understand is that this is itself part of cricket, maybe one of the most important parts and often one of the least tedious.

Also: how to warn a batter to stay behind their crease.
posted by A Thousand Baited Hooks at 5:10 AM on September 26, 2022 [3 favorites]

Whether it's (as jjderooy says) competitive compliance with a set of established-published laws, where anything not specifically banned is fair

To be clear, this tactic is explicitly listed in the established-published laws as a consequence for the batter crossing the line/crease too early.

41.16.1 If the non-striker is out of his/her ground at any time from the moment the ball comes into play until the instant when the bowler would normally have been expected to release the ball, the non-striker is liable to be Run out. In these circumstances, the non-striker will be out Run out if he/she is out of his/her ground when his/her wicket is put down by the bowler throwing the ball at the stumps or by the bowler’s hand holding the ball, whether or not the ball is subsequently delivered.
posted by muddgirl at 6:47 AM on September 26, 2022

It seems to me that backing up is an attempt to gain a competitive advantage on the part of the non-striker, somewhat similar to the advantage a runner attempts to gain by "taking a lead" in baseball (standing some distance away from their current base prior to the ball being pitched). But there must be a risk that attaches to this competitive advantage. In baseball the runner is exposed to the potential of getting picked off or caught in a rundown. And in cricket the non-striker is exposed to the risk of being run out. How can it possibly be unsporting for the defending team in either sport to exercise the penalty for those risks?
posted by slkinsey at 9:27 AM on September 26, 2022 [1 favorite]

Using Mankad's name in association with this practice is racist because Mankad wasn't the first or only player to do it.

I can clearly recall the 1984 fictional Australian tv series Bodyline containing an example of it, committed by arch villian Jardine against the noble KS Ranjitsinhji. Popular culture's view was that it was only an option if you were ruthless and didn't care what people thought of you. In the scene, Ranji complains that, "It is not within the spirit of the game." Jardine spits back, "Its in the rules!"

And that's the point because cricket is supposed to have a spirit and that spirit is supposed to be respected. I know every sportsperson wants to consider themselves honourable but I don't think other sports are sufficiently up their own arse to venerate 'the spirit of the game' to quite the degree that cricket does. If cricket wasn't so pompous about it, it might be a bit easier to swallow.

At the level I played you would never do this unless the batsman was absolutely taking the piss and you'd definitely warn him first. But if you are at the top level you have to win. Either that or don't come. Its a blunder by the English player.
posted by devious truculent and unreliable at 9:32 AM on September 26, 2022

Question for those in the know with respect to cricket: What is the logic behind considering backing up to be "within the spirit of the game" but running out the person who is backing up "not within the spirit of the game"?
posted by slkinsey at 9:45 AM on September 26, 2022

The primary contest in cricket is between the batter and the bowler. Backing up by the non-striker is an ubiqituous practice; almost second nature and instinctively done. If it were rigorously punished, an innings would be fairly short. The bowler, instead of concentrating on how they intend to bowl, would be keeping an eye on the figure to the side.

It's ok occasionally for novelty and shock value but it would make for a poorer contest if done regularly.
posted by daksya at 11:17 AM on September 26, 2022 [1 favorite]

To prevent this problem, I used to stand in line with the stumps and started walking when the bowler passed me. That way I still got a slow head start if I needed to start running, but kept myself within the crease so the bowler did not think I was gaining an unfair advantage.

That is the crux of the matter here. The backing up, especially in a limited over game, especially when it is the end of a tense game; is obviously unfair to the bowling side. Now, you can argue that the penalty for getting busted is too large to fit the 'crime', but it is within the laws of the game. Which is why it was clarified (again) recently. Backing up is gaining an unfair advantage. You do it blatantly enough and get caught out, you should not be crying about it.
posted by indianbadger1 at 12:28 PM on September 26, 2022 [2 favorites]

Backing up by the non-striker is an ubiqituous practice; almost second nature and instinctively done.

Maybe it shouldn't be?

you can argue that the penalty for getting busted is too large to fit the 'crime'

Would it be possible to impose a lesser penalty? If so, what would that be.


Apologies if this is all obvious to cricket fans.
posted by slkinsey at 2:01 PM on September 26, 2022

Apologies if this is all obvious to cricket fans.

This is, quite literally, one of the largest ongoing arguments within cricket fandom that I've ever known. So no, there isn't an obvious alternative - Zaltzmann is quoted as wanting a runs-based penalty, other pundits (eg Adam Collins) are firmly on team "it's a-ok as-is".
posted by coriolisdave at 2:08 PM on September 26, 2022

Here is a really interesting analysis of Charlie Dean through her whole appearance. Disclaimer I don't know this guy's cricket credentials and I'm not a cricket expert by any means.

He also notes in a later comment that one Indian player also passed their crease early frequently (although half as often as Dean) and that player has been run out before as a non-striker. I get the impression that this is becoming a more common strategy in some leagues so at international competition, batters need to be careful with some bowlers (I want to say curve ball pitchers 😂 but I think they are called spinners?)
posted by muddgirl at 5:07 PM on September 26, 2022 [1 favorite]

It's very clearly within the rules. I think that the crux of this discussion should move from whether the bowler has been sportsmanlike to whether that batsman has been an idiot. If you have been caught out then the focus should be on your failure to adhere to the rules, and not whether the bowler took advantage of those rules.

For sure, it's underwhelming and ruins the spectacle for some, but I feel the criticism should be directed towards the batsman.
posted by trif at 8:03 AM on September 27, 2022 [2 favorites]

"I think part of the problem is that the penalty for being out of your crease is the highest: your wicket. By comparison, if a bowler is out of their crease when bowling, the penalty is just a single run and having to bowl again."

Unless the bowler happens to take the batter's wicket and is subsequently no-balled and the batter gets to stay in. Arguably an equivalent penalty.
posted by awfurby at 9:28 PM on September 29, 2022