Ashwin backs ‘another bowling hero’ Deepti Sharma, defends mankading
Jhulan Goswami’s last match ended on a controversial note as bowler Deepti Sharma turned to the mankading technique to get the last wicket of the match giving Team India a 16-run victory against England Women in the third ODI.
Right after the match in Lord’s, London on Friday; a presenter asked Captain Harmanpreet Kaur what she thought of the dismissal. Backing Sharma, she gave a savage reply. “To be honest, I thought you will ask about all ten wickets, because they were not easy to take,” she said.
While Kaur backed her on field, cricketer Ravichandran Ashwin who has used the mankad rule to his advantage in the past defended the woman cricketer fiercely on Twitter.
Cricket fans who criticized Sharma also targeted Ashwin and trolled him mercilessly. To which he responded, “Why the hell are you trending Ashwin? Tonight is about another bowling hero @Deepti_Sharma06.”
Joining scores of people who seemed unhappy with what Sharma did were England cricketer Sam Billings. “Well within the laws but not in the spirit. Just my opinion… the law should be changed back to a warning system or penalty runs for excessive backing up for eg,” he wrote.
In a series of tweets he put out, he added, “Imagine how many more wickets you could get James,” referring to James Anderson to which Ashwin came in and mocked him.
“In fact that’s a great idea. How about awarding that wicket to the bowler for “presence of mind” under immense pressure and of course knowing the social stigma that he/she would have to deal with post doing it. How about a bravery award to go with it too @ICC ?,” wrote Ashwin in a series of tweets he put out in support of Sharma.
Apart from the cricketers and cricket clubs, fans have also joined in on the issue which sparked a meme fest online. From putting out valid arguments to some of the funniest and bizarre recreations of the wicket, Twitter is abuzz.
Mankading is a method of run out where a bowler dismisses a non-striker batsman by hitting the bails before bowling when the latter is outside the crease. Though this is a legally permissible dismissal, it is considered against the spirit of the game.
