The mankading debate has been dominating the preparation for the Delhi Capitals side in IPL 2020. Ravichandran Ashwin, who was playing for Kings XI Punjab in IPL 2019, caused a massive controversy when he mankaded Rajasthan Royals’ Jos Buttler. The move led to plenty of support and criticism. However, Ricky Ponting, the head coach of the Delhi Capitals team, had raised some eyebrows when he said that until he is the head coach of the Delhi Capitals side, he will not allow Mankading.

However, that view has been altered yesterday in a discussion with Ashwin. Speaking on a chat show, Ponting endorsed Ashwin’s view that trying to sneak in a couple of runs by pinching some yards is cheating and also endorsed another viewpoint of Ashwin.

“If the batsman is trying to pinch a couple of yards, we’ve got to find a way around to make the batsmen stop. I don’t want to see anyone run 2-3 yards down the wicket, because that basically is cheating,” Ponting told Ashwin in the chat show.

Run penalty

Ponting also endorsed the fact that a run penalty is a big deterrent for players to stop pinching too many yards down the popping crease in order to steal runs. “I think there should be some sort of run penalty. If you get to the top of your bowling action and stop, and it shows that the batsman is cheating, I think put a run penalty on him. And do it right from the start because that’ll stop him straight away. Imagine taking 10 runs off a team total because you’ve gone a yard out of your crease. These sort of things need to be looked at,” Ponting said.

Delhi Capitals are currently put up in Dubai and have had a couple of practice sessions but the IPL schedule has not been released due to the increase in the number of cases in COVID in the country as well as the situation with Chennai Super Kings.