4. Ashwin’s ‘Mankad’ incident in 2019
Ravichandran Ashwin (Source: Twitter)
Ravichandran Ashwin is one of the most intellectual cricketers now playing, and his leadership of the Punjab team in 2019 was a prime illustration of this. Punjab had set a goal of 185 for the hosts in their first game of the year against Rajasthan.
In response, Jos Buttler was in top form, and while he was at the wicket, it looked like Rajasthan would triumph handily. But that was not to be as Buttler was run out by Ashwin at the non-striker’s end, which created a great discussion about the “spirit of cricket.”
Although Ashwin had every right to run Buttler out before bowling, many former cricketers believed it went against the spirit of the game. Punjab won that contest by 14 runs, and since then, there has been ongoing discussion regarding the non-striker run-out.
