This was only the eighth reported instance of a batsman being run out backing up in an international match. PHOTO: AFP
Cook insisted a ‘line had been crossed’ after Sachithra Senanayake ran out England’s Jos Buttler as the non-striker backed up during Sri Lanka’s 3-2 series-clinching six-wicket win in the fifth and final ODI at Edgbaston on Tuesday.
Sri Lanka captain Angelo Mathews, asked by the umpires if he wanted to uphold what was a legitimate appeal, didn’t call Buttler back and the wicketkeeper, whose blistering 121 had so nearly taken the hosts to victory in their seven-run fourth ODI defeat at Lord’s on Saturday, was out for 21.
“I’ve never seen it before in a game,” said Cook.
“I was pretty disappointed with it. You don’t know what you’d do if you were put in that situation, the heat of the moment, until you are. I’d hope I wouldn’t do it.”
But Mathews insisted that Buttler had been repeatedly warned before Senanayake took the bails off to send Buttler on his way.
Yet even though ‘Mankading’, the term coined after India’s Vinoo Mankad ran out Australia non-striker Bill Brown during the 1947-48 Sydney Test, remains a legitimate dismissal, there are those who regard it as against the ‘spirit of cricket’.
England and Sri Lanka meet in the first of two Tests at Lord’s next week and Cook added, “Probably, it (the run out) will spice it up a bit, there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s just important you let your cricket do the talking as well.”
Published in The Express Tribune, June 5th, 2014.
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