Unfair to criticise fielding team for mankading: Dhoni

India skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni Saturday made his stand clear against putting the onus on fielding captain when an appeal is made for “mankading” a batsman.

Dhoni said it was unfair to always ask the fielding captain to re-consider an appeal after a batsman has been “mankaded”.

It was the dismissal of Lahiru Thirimanne during India’s match against Sri Lanka Tuesday that triggered the debate on mankading. Indian spinner Ravichadran Ashwin had spotted Thirimanne leave the non-striker’s crease well before the ball was bowled, he ran him out, and then appealed.

The umpires asked if Virender Sehwag, the captain in the absence of Dhoni, wants to go ahead with the appeal. Sehwag after discussing with Sachin Tendulkar withdrew the appeal.

Dhoni questioned the existence of the rule, saying why a captain has to be asked to re-consider an appeal.

“I feel that (unfair) is what it (the act of asking the captain) is. Either there should be rules or there shouldn’t be rules. Why are you asking the captain? Why are you putting him in a position? But I think the right thing was done. Because the captain was asked, we withdrew the appeal,” he said.

Dhoni said that Sehwag took the right decision giving Thirimanne the benefit of the doubt because these rules keep changing.

“Because what happens is too many rules are getting changed. Often what’s important is to give the batsman a fair chance, like a warning, saying, ‘Okay, please don’t do it’,” he said.

Dhoni said a batsmen should be warned.

“A proper warning always is, you get him out and then it’s a proper warning,” Dhoni said. “Nobody listens to you until you do it.”

Dhoni said the fielding team should not be accused of unfair play in this case of a mankading.

“It was important to appeal. The reason being it’s in the law that the batsman can’t go out. Often it is put on the opposition captain. For example, on Virender Sehwag. Saying, you know, it’s wrong. If it’s part of the rule, it’s not wrong. Of course to take the decision or not the decision is something different.”

“Eventually if you are saying somebody was cheating – if I may use the word cheating, you can use some other word – in this case, then the batsman getting out is the one who is cheating, because he is not allowed to do that. So I think it was a fair thing to do.”

“You can’t always have the batsman going so far ahead because he can complete the run if it goes to short fine or point or short third, he is in a better position to complete the run. I think it was a good decision. At the end that he was not taken out by our skipper,” he said.