West Indies forgot Walsh’s gesture Courtney Walsh
 Courtney Walsh

Courtney Walsh

GOING back in history, on October 16, 1987, during a World Cup match against Pakistan, Courtney Walsh had refused to run out Saleem Jaffar for backing too far at the non-striker’s end in a humdinger at Lahore.

Chasing 217 for a win, Pakistan required 14 runs off the last over bowled by Walsh with just a wicket in hand. Abdul Qadir and Saleem Jaffar were at the crease.

Twelve runs were scored in the first five deliveries, including a six by Qadir. With two runs required from the final delivery, Walsh approached the stumps. However, Jaffar had quite expectedly got a bit too carried away by the heat of the moment, and he had backed up a bit too much before Walsh had delivered the ball. Walsh ran up to the stumps and stopped. And then, with million hearts pounding, he simply warned Jaffar and went back to the bowling mark with a characteristic wry smile on his face.

Walsh delivered the final ball with an attempted Yorker on the stumps. Qadir gave himself room, and managed to connect it somehow. Third man was inside the circle and the ball went past him. The batsmen ran two and Pakistan clinched a thriller.

Needless to mention, Walsh’s act went on to cost West Indies a semi-final berth which meant that West Indies failed to make the semi-finals for the first time in the history of the tournament.

However, Walsh won hearts of millions of cricket lovers, including the then Pakistan President Zia-ul-Haq. He ensured victory for cricket that day.

In a world where sport has become ruthlessly competitive, Walsh’s gesture only proved that the game could be played like a true gentleman if one really wanted to.

More than 28 years later, on the 2nd of February 2016, history repeated itself albeit with a twist.
It was Keemo Paul instead of Walsh; it was Richard Ngarava instead of Saleem Jaffar; it was Zimbabwe rather than Pakistan and it was a West Indian victory as Keemo could not do a ‘Walsh’ when he ran the last batsman out ‘mankaded’.

In a scintillating match the West Indies Under-19 cricket team got the better of Zimbabwe Under-19 cricket team by a low margin of two runs to reach the quarter-final of the Under-19 Cricket World Cup in Bangladesh.

Given a target of 227 to win in 50 overs, Zimbabwe only needed three runs to win in the last over with just a wicket in hand. Keemo Paul was the bowler. He ran through the bowling crease without entering his delivery stride and broke the stumps, catching the non-striker Richard Ngarava with his bat on the line while he was standing a couple of steps out of his crease. The West Indians appealed for run out that prompted the on field umpires to confer. After confirming that the West Indians wanted to go with the appeal, the third umpire was referred to and Ngarava was adjudged run out ‘mankaded’ ending Zimbabwe’s hope of a quarter-final berth.

Twenty-nine years ago West Indies lost the semi-final berth because of Walsh’s gesture, here in almost similar circumstances, they qualified for the quarter-finals by not doing what Walsh did.

A visibly upset Zimbabwe captain Brandon Mavuta refused to comment on the ‘mankad’ after the game.

The West Indies captain Shimron Hetmyer was comfortable with the decision to appeal for the wicket.

“I would say yes, cricket is a game of uncertainties, we’ve seen it happen in cricket before, and it’s not a big deal for us,” Shimron said.

Zimbabwe manager Admire Marodza admitted that the team was unhappy, but there was little they could do except to console the players because the dismissal was within the rules.

Marodza said: “Rules are rules. We can’t change them and we can’t change what happened. A run-out is a run-out. I don’t think it is anything to protest about. We are not happy about losing the game from such a good position. The way our boys competed, it is an achievement. We are happy how we played in this tournament.”

The West Indies team must be happy winning the match, but somewhere deep inside their heart they would be feeling otherwise. Of all the forms of getting a batsman out, ‘mankad’ out is a painful sight for a cricket lover as well as the batsman, who got out. But this is perfectly within the rule. Ask any cricket fan, and he would say getting a batsman out mankaded is perfectly alright provided a warning is given at the first instance.

The cricket rules say the following on getting a batsman ‘run out’ while he is backing up: “As a bowler enters his delivery stride, the non-striking batsman usually ‘backs up’. This means he leaves his popping crease and walks towards the other end of the wicket so that it will take him less time to reach the other end if he and his batting partner choose to attempt a run. Sometimes a batsman, whilst backing up, leaves the popping crease before the bowler has actually delivered the ball. Where this has happened, the bowler may attempt to run the non-striking batsman out. Getting a batsman out this way, though legal, is generally considered to be against the spirit of the game as the non-striker usually accidentally leaves the crease. By convention, the bowler is meant to warn the batsman to stay in his crease rather than to take his wicket. If he fails, and the batsman gets home, the delivery is called a dead ball.”

The most famous example of this method of dismissal involved the Indian bowler Vinoo Mankad. It occurred during India’s tour of Australia on 13 December 1947 in the second Test in Sydney. Mankad ran out Bill Brown when, in the act of delivering the ball, he held on to it and removed the bails with Brown well out of his crease. This was the second time Mankad had dismissed Brown in this fashion on the tour, having already done it in an earlier match against an Australian XI.

On that occasion he had warned Brown once before running him out. The Australian press accused Mankad of being unsportsmanlike, although some Australians, including Don Bradman, the Australian captain at the time, defended Mankad’s actions. Since this incident, a batsman dismissed in this fashion is said to have been “Mankaded.”

The most recent incident about Mankading is England batsman Jos Buttler being dismissed by Sri Lankan bowler Sachithra Senanayake in 2014 in England. Kapil Dev also did the same to get Peter Kirsten of South Africa although Kapil Dev had warned him earlier.

In today’s competitive world, victory at any cost is being pursued. Therefore one cannot blame the West Indies under-19 team for what they did, but glory is missing in these type of victories. – Online

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