Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me – a saying easily applied to the controversial mankad incident that took place in Sri Lanka and England’s recent One Day International.
In the 44th over of the innings, English batsman Jos Buttler was given out after Sri Lankan off spinner Sachithra Senanayake mankaded him.
For those who don’t know, a mankad is when the bowler runs out the batsman at the non-strikers end before the delivery stride, because they have left the popping crease.
It is a perfectly legitimate dismissal, although generally considered to be against the spirit of the game. Common etiquette dictates the bowler give the batsman a warning if they do it once, and then if it happens again the bowler has every right to whip the bails off.
Such an incident had not happened in international cricket for 22 years and the English press, the crowd, members of the English cricket team and their coaching staff expressed outrage that Senanayake went through with the mankad.
But what is conveniently left out is that earlier in the decider, Senanayake caught Buttler leaving the crease, and gave him a warning. A sportsmanlike gesture. In fact, in the previous ODI, the Sri Lankans gave Buttler the same warning.
For Buttler to walk out of his crease again, to the same bowler, is just idiotic. Did he really think he could get away with it twice in a game, after already being warned?
Why is all the criticism on Senanayake, when it should be on Buttler?
We come back to the saying – Fool me once…
If Senanayake whipped the bails off before giving a warning, it would have been against the spirit of the game. But if Buttler is silly enough to prematurely walk out of his crease after a warning, the only shame is on himself.
It’s written in black and white, you cannot just leave your crease as you please, it has been hammered into cricketers since under-eights. Australian captain Michael Clarke stated that as long as the bowler first gives a warning, he has no problem with the idea of mankadding somebody.
Sri Lanka went onto win the decider by six wickets with 10 balls remaining. However this incident took the spotlight away from the outcome. Perhaps England should spend less time complaining about what happened, and more time ensuring this never happens again.
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