Apart from his spin bowling skills, Ravichandran Ashwin was notorious for his intent to manhandle the batsmen. In a recent Star Sports segment, the former Indian spinner revealed the conversation he had with Shreyas Iyer during the Indian Premier League (IPL) season.
Because Ashwin had a tendency to mankad the non-striker-end batsmen, even Shreyas Iyer was afraid of it. Ashwin mentioned that during one IPL season, Iyer had requested him not to let the non-striker-end batsmen be run out by Mankad.
Ravichandran Ashwin reveals a secret conversation with Shreyas Iyer
Ravichandran Ashwin reveals the chat from the IPL 2019 season when he was leading Punjab Kings and Shreyas Iyer was the captain of Delhi Capitals. During the toss of the Delhi Capitals vs Punjab Kings match in Mohali, Iyer went straight to talk to Ashwin.
The incident that Ravichandran Ashwin mentioned was one that had never come up before, so it came as a surprise even to the hosts of the segment. Before the toss, Iyer came to talk to Ashwin, who was the captain of Punjab Kings at that time, as he sought assurance from the spinner whether he would be going to manhandle any of his batsmen in that match.
Shreyas Iyer came to Ravichandran Ashwin to save Mankad
As Shreyas Iyer assured that none of his bowlers would apply the Mankad method to dismiss the opposition batsmen in that match, Ashwin said he could not make a promise.
Ashwin said, “I played for Delhi the next year. I went from Punjab to Delhi. Ricky Ponting and Shreyas were the captains. Do you know what happened? We were playing in Punjab and Delhi came to Mohali to play the match. Shreyas told me during the toss that he (Mankad) will not play and I too will not play. I replied that I am not coming for this agreement.”
He said, “The next year I went to Delhi and asked him whether he would appeal. He said, no, he would not appeal.”
In the same Indian Premier League season, in 2019, Ashwin mankad Rajasthan Royals batsman Jos Buttler and Punjab eventually won the match. So Shreyas Iyer knew that Ashwin would not hesitate to do it again, even against Delhi Capitals, if he got any chance to dismiss the batsman at the non-striker’s end while bowling.
Ashwin dismissed Jos Buttler through the controversial “Mankad” run-out during a 2019 IPL match, which was widely debated. Since there were very few instances when a batsman was dismissed for a Mankad run-out, the incident became a controversial move.
Mankad gradually became popular among the new age cricketers
Later, when experts told that Ravichandran Ashwin did this as per the rule book of cricket, then Butler’s dismissal was fine. Later, when Mankad gradually became popular across the world, many cricketers, including male and female cricketers, tried to follow in Ashwin’s footsteps.
Currently, Mankad run-out is no longer a controversial act, and all batsmen keep in mind that if they leave the crease before the ball leaves the bowler’s hand, they can be dismissed for Mankad run-out.