Op-Ed by Amit KumaR Agarwal
'Gentleman's game' better known as cricket was recently mired by a trivial controversy, with India's Deepti Sharma running out Charlie Dean in the third ODI
to whitewash the ODI series.
Before, I write further let me clarify, I am no sports journalist. My areas of writing are entertainment, spirituality and sensuality, all very different, yet all very closely related. The 'furore', though, with which the cricketing legends jumped to put their viewpoint was motivating enough to set the ball right.
To put the incident in context, let's quickly go over the match details. The Indian side led by Harmanpreet Kaur scripted a historic ODI series win against
England on England's turf, registering a clean sweep. The win was scripted with Sharma running out England's Charlotte Dean. During the game, Sharma noticed that Dean was backing up too
far at the non-striker end (evident from the picture above). Sharma ran her out in the 44th over, with England still needing 17 runs to win the game.
This dismissal, however garnered mixed reactions. While
captain Harmanpreet backed her player, England were disappointed with it
with veterans and experts of the game taking to a social media site to spark a massive debate on 'Spirit of Cricket'.
Ironically, less than 24 hours after her dismissal, the very same Charlotte Dean tried to emulate the same run out technique, during a domestic game at the Lord's, in the final of the 2022
Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy! The non-striker was cautious enough, with her bat well in the crease.
Why this unwarranted controversy. Is it a simple case of hypocrisy and racism. I decided to dig into the history of 'Mankading'. I found the very use of the term 'Mankading' to be racist.
Why?
Because, though termed 'mankading', the first known use of this 'run out technique' was by Thomas Barker against George Baigent in the Sussex v Nottinghamshire game in Nottingham in the year 1835! The 'Mankad run out' now famous as 'Mankading' happened a good 112 years later in 1947.
Ironically
again, the players involved in the first incident, the batsman and the bowler, were both English cricketers. Interestingly, the first five 'Mankading' instances were all by the same bowler, an English cricketer, Thomas Barker. So why is it 'Mankading' - why not 'Barkering' or 'Barkerism' - doesn't it reek of racism?
It were the English cricketers without any doubt that invented 'the run out', now famous as Mankading - the very invention that caused the England's women team to suffer a whitewash. Them crying over it is nothing, but sheer hypocrisy!