Mankading and the Spirit of Cricket

Cricket, and only cricket, could spend the best part of a century agonising over something as straightforward as a legal run out. Seventy years after Vinoo Mankad dismissed the backing-up Bill Brown in Sydney, the Mankad’s continuing controversial reputation is symptomatic of game’s unhelpful fixation with the ‘spirit of cricket’.

Vinoo Mankad’s name had become a synonymous with unfair play, but he should be remembered as an innovator not a villain.

Somehow the act of running a batter out with the Mankad has become seen to be disreputable and something that is certainly not cricket. After all, a batter is just wandering a little way towards to safety of the striker’s popping crease 17.68 metres away, which is hardly a crime against cricket, is it? Yet with the Mankad and the whole notion of 'spirit', the devil is in the detail. 

Where do we mark the ‘line’ of encroachment acceptability for non-strikers trying to gain an advantage? Five centimetres is probably fine; one metre is probably pushing it; and so on. If we take this thought experiment to its absurd endpoint and we would discover that the non-striker is already safe in the batter’s crease as the bowler bowls. This then, is definitely not fair but we need not go so far; in professional cricket, ubiquitous video replays highlight the fine margins between success and disaster for scampering runners, so that it is clear any advantage gained by a wandering batter is unfair to the fielding team: the threat of the Mankad is necessary to balance this out, and ironically make everything a bit more cricket. Sure a batter can go for a wander - that is not illegal - but they do so knowing that they are taking a terrible risk. 

The Mankad’s poor reputation is probably a remnant of batters’ amateur legacy. Batsmen were the amateurs; they were the better sort, and certainly the gentlemen. So the professional, not gentlemanly, bowlers are unfairly tainted by the brush of poor spirit despite being in the right.

The formal Spirit of Cricket, outlined by Lord Ted Dexter and Colin Cowdrey, is now a preamble to cricket’s Laws with its ethos of hard play, stoicism, and respect. This is all sounds good in theory. Yet, cricket is played in the real world and throughout history cricketing ethics has never maintained a classical high elbow. Cheating and gambling have been ever-present vices, and even issues considered to be fair, such as batters walking when they know they're out, have been practised selectively by even the most sainted players. In short, the informal ‘spirit of cricket’ and formal Spirit of Cricket, is a myth built on nostalgia harking back to a non-existent golden age of fair play.

"For the life of me, I can’t understand why they questioned Vinoo Mankad's sportsmanship" Don Bradman

Even if we accept it as harmless to build cricket’s ethos on legend rather than fact, a few catchy phrases before the sparingly read Laws cannot capture the nebulous meaning of "spirit" for a global sport. Yet, the Spirit of Cricket confuses the game by introducing an antiquated, exclusive viewpoint on how the game should be played that is not the welcoming, inclusive atmosphere cricket should have. What’s more, the benevolently meaningless Spirit of Cricket has been shown to be powerless to tackle practical problems, including sledging.

An exciting approach in cricket necessitates players pushing, but not crossing, acceptable lines; these lines need to be clearly drawn by Laws, not ephemeral boundaries manned by the formal or informal ‘spirit of cricket’. Bad behaviours that do emerge have to be censored by the Laws and cricket community, not by cricket’s dubious reputation for fair play. 

Here too, cricket can get itself in a mess: in the recent South Africa v Pakistan men's ODI wicketkeeper Quinton de Kock's seemed to deceive Fakhar Zaman by making gestures indicating that the ball was going to the bowler's end while Fakhar was running towards de Kock; it was not, and Fakhar was run out by the South African 'keeper for an incredible 193 after slowing down. Technically, what de Kock did was probably illegal, but against the spirit of the game? In my opinion, no. As much as I, and many others would love to have seen Fakhar's double century and the bonus 5 runs which could have aided Pakistan to an unlikely victory, it was good for the game this law was not enacted here. (As an aside, Fakhar admitted to not being upset by de Kock's actions and said he should never have slowed down). If deception in cricket is wrong, we should ban the googly, doosra, and the switch-hit, so why make an exception for fielding deception? There appears to be no logical reason for this. Once again, cricket's Laws get unnecessarily messy when in comes to spirit.