Mitchell Starc is just about of warnings for the world’s batters and is prepared to bring the Mankad dismissal back to test cricket after repeated run-ins with South African Theunis de Bruyn which nearly moved him to do it Melbourne.
Starc has the support of his captain Pat Cummins to run out any creeping non-strikers too with a free-for-all looming to snare any batters trying to gain an unfair advantage.
After joking de Bruyn was “half way down Punt Road” at the MCG on Thursday when Starc stopped his bowling action before warning the South African to stop, the Aussie quick said he’d had enough.
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“I had a word to him last night because he was doing it yesterday. And then he was half way down Punt Road when I was stopped,” Starc, who bowled with a badly injured finger, said post-match.
“He said he’s not doing it on purpose. I’ve got to keep my foot behind the line so you could at least keep your bat behind the line.
“There’s no need for it. You saw how far down he was.
“That’s just absolutely taking the mickey. That’s not just taking off before I bowl, he’s a metre down the wicket. Yeah I gave him a couple of warnings. If he wants to keep doing it I’ll take them [the stumps].”
Starc’s on-field warning to the batter was clear too.
“Stay in the crease, it’s not that hard,” he told de Bruyn in audio picked up by broadcasters.
“The line’s there for a reason.”
Cummins said any batter, not just de Bruyn, repeated breaching the rule should give the bowler every right, and now the captain’s approval, to run him out if he so desired.
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“Yep,” Cummins said.
“We can warn them a couple of times but if they keep taking the mickey…”
Starc has previously warned batters batting up too far and even called for the third umpire to potentially be called on to keep an eye on it.
He had insisted that he would never actually effect a Mankad, famously named after former Indian batter Vinoo Mankad who effected such a dismissal on Australia’s Bill Brown during a Test in late 1947.
But that could all change given Cummins OK, and an ICC rule tweak in October which moved the dismissal from the section governing “unfair play” to the general provisions around run outs.
