A balanced Proposal to get rid of Mankad-ing (or Ash-ing now!?)

The cricket world once again caught unaware with another unscrutinised rule from the game's rule book. While most of the game's oldies sang the sympathy song for the non-striking batsman, who caught off-guard, some sane opinions were seen as well.

The argument of these veteran singers varies from 'outside the spirit of the game' to 'Ash not coming to bowling stride and waiting for Buttler to go out.' Some pandits did point out that the rule is ambiguous when it says that, the non-striker leaving the crease can be ran-out, if he leaves the crease by the time, the bowler delivers (apparently, its not by the time he gets into bowling stride, as it used to be).

One can only have a subjective imagination on whether Buttler was out of crease at the exact time when Ash would be delivering. But, thats not the point that the rule makes.  It says, the bowler can attempt to run out, which means, there is no real validity for the batsman being inside or outside the crease at that exact point of release.

While Buttler caught off guard on this occasion, all of us, the cricket family, world wide, have been off guard about one thing, all the time: the runs that were attributed to quick or brilliant running, after a non-striking batsman takes an early start. A batsman, while being on the non-striking end, has only one responsibility: to be inside the crease until a bowler bowls. Taking an early start, is his own choice against the rule that asks him to be inside.


For long, while the umpire standing behind is guarding the line, only to his left, the non-striking batsmen have been taking unfair advantage and never it had been seriously scrutinised for being 'outside the spirit of the game.' While, the overstepping of the bowler comes under scrutiny every ball, the non-striking batsmen go scot free.



Only few times, few bowlers dared to take advantage of the rule, and they were mostly ascribed with this 'being unfair' jibe. But, the unfairness comes from the rule. While the bowler overstepping had the penalty of a run and an extra ball, [which became a free-hit, later in shorter formats], taking off early would get a batsman out, potentially every time, which can be termed unfair. Earlier, there used to be a warning given to such non-striking batsman, but it was stricken off later.

Now, a balanced rule could be a penalty for such early start by a non-striking batsman, which also needs to be checked for every ball along with the bowler's foot [some part of the batsman or his bat being behind the line just like the bowler's foot at the exact time the bowler releases the ball]. A penalty of 5 or fewer runs for such early start could be the balancing act that can address the issue, putting a permanent end to the ever controversial manked-ing or the current ash-ing of the non-striker.