'It can’t be a controversy anymore'- Kevin Pietersen breaks his silence on Mankad incident

Kevin Pietersen gives strong statement (Image Source: Twitter)

A non-striker run-out has been the talk of the town in cricket of late and it all started with Deepti Sharma’s antics against England in the third ODI in September. Since then, many bowlers including Deepak Chahar and Mitchell Starc have warned the non-strikers to stay in their crease. 

Kevin Pietersen, the former England batter, took to Twitter on October 18, Tuesday to give his opinion on the same and added that it must not be a controversy anymore. The right-handed batter said that if someone runs out the non-striker, the player is well within the rules. 

“A ‘Mankad’ is now a run out according to the new rule change at the Cricket’s governing body. If it happens, a player is playing by the rules. It’ll take time for us all to accept this, but it can’t be a controversy anymore,” Pietersen tweeted on non-striker run-out. 

A ‘Mankad’ is now a run out according to the new rule change at the ICC.
If it happens, a player is playing by the rules.
It’ll take time for us all to accept this, but it can’t be a controversy anymore.

— Kevin Pietersen🦏 (@KP24) October 18, 2022

Will the controversy ever end?

As it stands, the controversy looks never-ending and opinions keep coming from all sides. The Australian pacer, Starc, however, had a different idea on the same. Commenting on the non-striker run-out, the pacer said that the batter can be docked a run every time. 

“Why not take it out of the hands of interpretation, and make it black-and-white? Every time the batter leaves the crease before the front foot lands, dock them a run. There's no grey area then. And in T20 cricket where runs are so handy at the back end and games can be decided by one, two, three runs all the time, if all of a sudden you get docked 20 runs because a batter's leaving early, you're going to stop doing it, aren't you?” Starc told to the Sunday Morning Herald. 

“It's harder to do down the levels of cricket, but particularly in international cricket, there are always going to be cameras square-on for the front foot and for the run-outs. So, why not? And if it either makes the batters think about it - or stops it occurring - isn't that a good thing?” said the pacer further.