Jos Buttler has finally broken his silence on the ‘mankading’ incident between him and Ravichandran Ashwin in Rajasthan Royals’ season-opener against Kings XI Punjab on March 25, and conceded that the wrong decision was made by the third umpire.
Buttler was mankaded by Ashwin when the Royals opener was batting on 69 with his team cruising in the 185-run chase at the Sawai Mansingh stadium in Jaipur.
The Royals were 108 for 2 when Buttler got run-out in the 13th over. KXIP completely collapsed after the controversial dismissal as they ended up with 164 for 9, losing the match by 14 runs.
“At the time, I was really disappointed with it. I didn’t like the style of it,” England wicketkeeper-batsman Buttler told the Daily Mirror.
“What was more disappointing is that suddenly over the next two games I found myself being really conscious of it and it is quite distracting. That is why it was nice to get some runs in the win and get back to thinking about batting and not worrying about how I back up at the nonstriker’s end.”
“I think if you look at the footage, probably the wrong decision was made because at the time he was expected to release the ball I was in my crease.”
Ashwin was heavily criticised on social media over the dismissal by a number of current and former players while Buttler did not join them, the Englishman admitted it left a bad taste in his mouth.
“I didn’t like what happened and I didn’t agree with it, but what can you do? I must be the only person to get out twice in that way as well! I’ll make sure it never happens again.”
“I didn’t like what had happened. I just thought it was a bad precedent at the start of the tournament,” he said.
“I’d hope, whether it was a written thing or not, that players – as custodians of the game, role models to young kids and professional people – would carry themselves in a certain way and play the game hard and competitive, but play in what I perceive to be the right way, which is in a good spirit,” Buttler added.
