VIDEO | Krunal Pandya gives “warning” to Mayank Agarwal for possible Mankad
After what had happened the other night, Kings XI Punjab are going to get a taste of their own medicine, or least, from Krunal Pandya. Krunal Pandya made that clear in no uncertain terms but decided to give a warning to Mayank Agarwal to be in his crease before the ball was delivered.
“Mankading” has been a grey area in cricket, at least in the human mind, as it always goes hand in hand with the discussion of “Spirit of Cricket”. When Ravichandran Ashwin used the tactics to dismiss Jos Buttler, the cricket world was divided like never before, with MCC coming out to state that the off-spinner’s act that night was against the spirit of cricket. Today, Mumbai Indians, however, decided to give Kings XI Punjab a taste of their own medicine when Krunal almost pulled off a Mankading against them.
On the third delivery of the 10th over, with Rahul being on the strike, Krunal saw Agarwal backing up even before the ball was bowled. Unlike Jos Buttler, Agarwal was on a rapid speed and genuinely wanted to back up and take advantage of that.
Seeing that, Krunal suddenly stopped on his stride and turned in such a way that he was going to dismiss the Karnataka batsman. Mayank was very afraid by then and used all his energy to ground his bat as soon as possible. However, Krunal was not in the mindset of dismissing him, he just wanted to give him a warning. A controversy was avoided, but more importantly, it set another precedent that the batsmen shouldn’t take the bowlers for granted.