RIP Bill Brown

RIP Bill Brown and Mankading

If you are a quizzer, chances are that you first heard of Bill Brown as being the man whom Vinoo Mankad famously ran out at the non-striker's while bowling but *before* finishing his delivery. This led to the curious dismissal sub-genre of being 'Mankad'-ed. Bill Brown passed away yesterday and a shower of tributes have poured since. Some of it can be read at Cricinfo. Interestingly, the dismissal was named after the bowler and not the batsman. This can possibly be attributed to the fact that some people did not think this to be an act of sportsmanship, and since the hullabaloo was in Australia, local reporters may have chosen to attach the name of the 'perpetrator' of the controversial mode of running out a batsman, instead of the Aussie batsman.

Of course, with recent rule changes, it is much harder to 'Mankad' anyone. A non-striker can now start 'backing up' (jargon for leaving the crease - a little misleading because he isn't going back!) "as soon as the bowler’s backfoot touches the ground in his final action stride." (quote from Bob Simpson's column, who disapproves of this rule). This alteration makes it even more unlikely that anyone will be 'Mankad'-ed: the bowler has even lesser opportunities to effect the run-out, because most Mankadings are done towards the end of the delivery action (after the backfoot has landed) unless the batsman was foolish enough to strand himself out of the crease so early. It's also a question of the bowler's balance to perform such unnatural acts mid-performance.