Rohit Sharma Withdraws An Appeal
It was the 100th over of the match. Sri Lanka needed 83 in 3 balls. Their captain Dasun Shanaka was 98 not out, but found himself at the non-strikers end. The match was over as a competitive matter. India had won. In his anxiety to get the strike back to chase down the century, Shanaka backed up too early. The ever alert Mohammed Shami ran him out at the non-striker’s end. The umpire upheld Shami’s appeal, and Shanaka was run out for 98.
At this point, the Indian captain decided to request the umpire to let him withdraw the appeal (the procedure is specified in Law 31.8). The umpire agreed, and India withdrew their appeal and Shanaka was reinstated. The Sri Lankan captain went on to complete his century. In his comments after the match, Rohit Sharma observed that “No, I mean I had no idea Shami did that. Again, he's batting on 98 and the way he batted was brilliant. Cannot get him out like that and wanted to get him out the way we wanted to get him out.”
The episode brought on comparisons to Jos Buttler refusing to allow his team to appeal for a clear case of Obstructing the Field against Matthew Wade in a T20 International before the 2022 Men’s T20 World Cup. At the time, Australian needed 39 in 22 balls. England had not won the game at that point, it was in the balance. After the match, the England captain Jos Buttler said the following (as recorded by ESPNCricinfo’s ball by ball commentary:
"I was looking at the ball the whole time so I wasn't sure what happened. They asked if I wanted to appeal, but I thought we are here for a long time in Australia so would be a risky one to go for so early in the trip" [Different in a World Cup match?] "Maybe, yeah." So confirmation that England declined the opportunity to ask for Wade to be given out for obstructing the field.
Buttler basically said that that particular international competitive fixture was not important enough for England to appeal for Obstructing the Field, but that they probably would if the same thing happened in the World Cup match. It was an admission which could only mean that they didn’t want to compete as hard in that fixture as they would in a World Cup, even though that fixture was not a friendly, but a full T20 International fixture.
The Indian captain’s actions were different in two important respects. First, he didn’t prevent the Indian bowlers from appealing for the mankad. Second, he didn’t act in a way which influenced the outcome of the game. The game was already won. But as the Indian captain said, Shanaka had reached a brilliant 98, and India didn’t want to deny him the chance of a century by way of the mankad. (There is history in India v Sri Lanka fixtures on this matter. In 2010, Virender Sehwag was convinced that Suraj Randiv overstepped deliberately to prevent Sehwag from reaching his century in Dambulla.)
People can argue whether an opposition bat should be allowed to stay on to complete a century when he has been legitimately dismissed. There are those who say he shouldn’t. And there’s clearly a whole set of players who think mankading is somehow improper. Others (like Ashwin, Shami, Zampa etc.) evidently think it is entirely proper.
People can also argue about whether Rohit Sharma’s action betrays an obsession with milestones. This would be incharitable in my view. Rohit Sharma didn’t say that he thought the mankad was an improper dismissal. He only said that he thought Shanaka shouldn’t have been denied the opportunity to reach his hundred due to a mankad. The merits of this are debatable in my view. But professional courtesy, extended not with some strategic objective, but because they thought Shanaka played a brilliant hand, seems to exist in professional cricket.
Rohit Sharma and India do not leave themselves open to the observation which could be reasonably made about Jost Buttler and England due to that episode from October 2022 - that they don’t try equally hard to win every competitive fixture.