Vinoo Mankad-The forgotten Hero of Indian Cricket

An opening batsman and slow left arm orthodox bowler, he played in 44 Tests for India, and made 2109 runs at an average of 31.47 incorporating five Test hundreds of years with a best score of 231. He likewise took 162 wickets at the average of 32.32, including eight five-wicket hauls. He is one of the three cricketers to have batted in each position, from the first to the last, amid his Test career. He also captained the side in 1955–56 and 1958–59.

His opening partnership of 413 with Pankaj Roy in 1956 remained a world record for 52 years , and his 231 in that innings remained the highest score by an Indian in a Test match for about three decades. His 231 had broken his own past record of the highest Test score by an Indian: 184!

Mankad, born in Jamnagar in 1917, was a little unfortunate. While he initially played in 1937 in the informal Tests against the visiting England XI (led by Lord Tennyson, the grandson of the renowned poet), World War II postponed his official career by about 10 years.

There was one ocassion, while amid a Test at Lord’s in 1952, Mankad kept Sir Len Hutton from scoring for over thirty minutes. As the crowd booed the batsman, the Yorkshireman tested them to come in and check whether they could fare better. This was perhaps in what has turned out to be known as “Mankad’s Match” — in spite of India losing the Test.

Cricket writer John Woodcock notes Mankad “scored 72 on the opening day at Lord’s and after that bowling 73 overs in England’s first innings, in which he took 5 for 196”, then “went in again and made what at the time was India’s most noteworthy individual score in Test cricket — 184 — in just shy of five hours”. “By the time England won by eight wickets on the fifth morning, his bowling figures for the match were 97–36–231–5… No one else has ever been on the field for anything like as long in a match at Lord’s. Of the 24 hours 35 minutes for which the match lasted, he spent 18 hours 45 minutes in the middle,” he added. At the point when England just required 79 to win, Mankad still didn’t surrender — half of his 24 overs to the imposing batting trio of Hutton, Peter May and Denis Compton were maidens.

In his “Legendary Indian Cricketers”, popular reporter Ravi Chaturvedi gives a suggestive portrayal of both the man and his specialty. “Hair parted in the middle, shirt buttons open to the midriff, light-skinned, his green eyes enhanced by ‘kajal’ (eye-liner), he was pleasant to befriend, but very unpleasant with the ball for a batsman, and when he replaced the ball with the bat he was equally good. He could chip, chop, cut, drive, hook, punch, sweep and smote any ball to any part of the field. However, he got most of his runs through square-cuts and placements to leg,” he wrote.

Mankading

But Mankad had his share of controversy too, lending his name to a form of dismissal called ‘Mankading’. The most famous example of this method of dismissal occurred during India’s tour of Australia on 13 December 1947 in the second Test at 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 (informally) said to have been “Mankaded”.

Instances of Mankading in One Day Internationals

The batsman’s team is listed first.

1. Brian Luckhurst by Greg Chappell, England v Australia, Melbourne, 1974–1975
2. Grant Flower by Dipak Patel, Zimbabwe v New Zealand, Harare, 1992–1993
3. Peter Kirsten by Kapil Dev, South Africa v India, Port Elizabeth, 1992–1993
4. Jos Buttler by Sachithra Senanayake, England v Sri Lanka, Birmingham, 2014
5. Richard Ngarava by Keemo Paul, Zimbabwe vs West Indies, 2016 Under-19 Cricket World Cup, Bangladesh on 02/02/2016.

Instances of Mankading in Test cricket

1. Bill Brown by Vinoo Mankad, Australia v India, Sydney, 1947–1948
2. Ian Redpath by Charlie Griffith, Australia v West Indies, Adelaide, 1968–1969
3. Derek Randall by Ewen Chatfield, England v New Zealand, Christchurch, 1977–1978
4. Sikander Bakht by Alan Hurst, Pakistan v Australia, Perth, 1978–1979

Instances of Mankading in Twenty20 Internationals

1. Mark Chapman by Aamir Kaleem, Hong Kong v Oman, 2016 Asia Cup Qualifier, February 2016

Instances of not Mankading

1. Walsh — Jaffar : Courtney Walsh of the West Indies famously refused to Mankad last man Saleem Jaffar of Pakistan for backing up too far in a group match in the 1987 World Cup, but let him off with a warning. Pakistan went on to win the match while the defeat cost the West Indies a place in the semi-final.
2. Rafique — Gul : The same thing was repeated in a 2003 Test match in Multan between Bangladesh and Pakistan. Pakistan eventually won the Test match by just 1 wicket. Mohammad Rafique of Bangladesh did not run out Umar Gul of Pakistan.
3. Ashwin — Thirimanne : Ravichandran Ashwin of the Indian cricket team Mankaded Lahiru Thirimanne of Sri Lankan cricket team when he backed up too much before the ball was bowled in a group match in the Commonwealth Bank Series 2012 held in Australia. However the standing umpires, Paul Reiffel and Billy Bowden, after discussion asked India if they wanted to reconsider the appeal and Virender Sehwag, captaining in the absence of MS Dhoni, withdrew the appeal after discussion with Sachin Tendulkar. Sehwag claims that Ashwin had warned Thirimanne before running him out, however Mahela Jayawardene, the Sri Lanka captain, said he was not aware of the warning.