Mankading

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A ‘Mankad’ or a ‘Mankading’ is a colloquial term used to describe the act of the bowler running out the batsman at the non-striker’s end when he finds the batsman leaving the crease even before the delivery stride is complete. Simply put, if the non-striker leaves his crease when the bowler is in the process of delivering the ball and has not yet released it, the bowler legitimately has the right to take the bails off and run the batsman out.

History of Mankading

The term ‘Mankad’ is coined after the name of the legendary Vinoo Mankad who has scored 2109 runs at an average of 31.47 with the bat and picked 162 wickets including eight five-wicket haul in 44 Test matches.
Despite such brilliant achievements, his name is pronounced for a method of dismissal that he happened to be the first inflictor of.
In 1948, against Australia in Sydney, the Australian batsman Bill Brown constantly kept leaving the crease before Mankad would deliver the ball. An annoyed Mankad warned him to not step out but to no avail. Despite warning him twice, when Brown did not abide, Mankad whipped the bails off and ran him out.
Aghast by the alleged ‘unsportsmanlike conduct’ by Mankad, the Australian media rebuked him and subsequently coined the term ‘Mankad’ that became a cricketing term for generations to follow.

Legality of Mankading

Law 41.16 of the Laws of Cricket 2017 (Marylebone Cricket Club) Code is titled as Non-striker leaving his/ her ground early.
The law regarding this has been tweaked a couple of times. For instance, in the earlier Code, the wordings went as “Bowler attempting to run out non-striker before delivery”, which was subsequently replaced with “Non-striker leaving their ground early”. The amendment was made in order to put the onus on the non-strikers to remain in the crease.
Further, the MCC slightly rephrased the law again, replacing “the bowler is permitted to run the non-striker out” with “the non-striker is liable to be run out.”
Previously, the bowler was only permitted to run out a non-striker backing up before entering his delivery stride. The new law permitted the bowler to run the batsman out “at any point before he releases the ball provided he has not completed his delivery swing.”
There are certain points to be kept in mind by the umpires while making the call. As per Law 41.16, the bowler can run the non-striker out till the instant when he would normally have been expected to release the ball.