Lahore: England’s stand-in skipper on the T20I tour of Pakistan Moeen Ali has said he will never dismiss a batter backing up too far from the crease, throwing his weight behind his country’s cricketer Charlie Dean who was ‘mankaded’ by India off-spinner Deepti Sharma in the third Women’s ODI at Lord’s on September 24.
Since the day Deepti Sharma ran out Dean in the 44th over at the non-striker’s end to get a 16-run victory for India over England to complete a 3-0 sweep, the cricketing world has been divided on whether the Indian team should have warned the rival team batter before effecting the run-out.
Deepti, who stopped in her delivery stride to run-out Dean from the non-striker’s end, has revealed that prior warnings were given to the batter before she was finally run out for backing up too far from the crease.
Moeen said, dismissing a batter backing up too far from the crease was not his thing, and he won’t do it unless he is “really angry with someone”.
“No, it’s not my thing,” Moeen was quoted as saying by The Telegraph. “I don’t think I’ll ever do it unless I was really angry with someone. It’s in the (ICC) laws and there’s nothing illegal so people that do it have the right, but I just hope it doesn’t become a common thing, or something that’s regularly done. You’re not really working to get a wicket. At least with a run-out, there’s a bit of work that has to be done, and with all the other dismissals. This is just waiting for the guy and taking the bails off. Even when I played cricket as a kid in the garden, it’s not my thing to do,” added Moeen.
The MCC statement has clearly stated that a non-striker run out is within the laws of the game, according to ICC, but the controversy surrounding Dean’s run-out at the non-striker’s end refuses to die down.
The dismissal is currently listed in the MCC’s ‘Unfair Play’ section of the laws (41.16.1), where the non-striker is to be adjudged run out “if he/she is out of his/her ground when his/her wicket is put down by the bowler throwing the ball at the stumps or by the bowler’s hand holding the ball, whether or not the ball is subsequently delivered.”
The section in the laws is to be moved to the ‘Run Out’ section from October 1, when an update to the ICC Playing Conditions comes into effect. As the “guardian of the laws of the game” the MCC recently re-iterated its position after the dismissal which handed India a narrow 16-run win, according to ICC.
“Whilst (the dismissal) was indeed an unusual end to an exciting match, it was properly officiated and should not be considered as anything more,” the statement from the MCC read. “Where one person sees the bowler as breaching the spirit in such examples, another will point at the non-striker gaining an unfair advantage by leaving their ground early.
“The Law is clear, as it needs to be for all umpires to be able to easily interpret throughout all levels of the game and at all moments in the game.”
England white-ball skipper Jos Buttler indicated he would instruct an opposing batter to return, should they fall to the dismissal. “No, I am calling the batsman back,” Buttler told TalkSPORT.
“No one wants to see them in the game because they always create such a talking point when it should be about the battle between bat and ball and watching great games of cricket. They always seem to happen at unsavoury times,” he added.
