Mankading in Cricket

 

Yesterday, we saw Ms Deepti Sharma mankading Ms Dean in the 3rd One Day cricket match between India and England.  In cricket, mankading has come to mean running out the non-striker by the bowler if she crosses the non-striker's crease even before the bowling action is completed. For years, such an action by the bowler was considered not in the spirit of the game. But now, such an action by the bowler is considered legit by Cricketing Rules.

What is our views on what happened yesterday? 

If we take the English reaction out of the equation,  where do we stand? We know that the English whine a lot. Their whining about Maradona's 'Hand of God' will probably go on into the next century. But, so what? Clearly, such whining has nothing to do with our own response, does it? If the tables were turned, and Ms Dean did a mankading on Ms Deepti, would we accept such an action with equanimity?

In my view, the rules need to change. Running off even before the bowler's action is complete should count as a short run; just as a short run is declared when the bat doesn't cross the crease while batters take a run. And, just to make sure that a recognised batter doesn't cross over to shield a tail ender, status quo ante should be preserved, as far as batting ends are concerned. Of course, such short run will have to be auto-detected by technology; just as we do in the case of a no-ball.