Former skipper Arjuna Ranatunga on Wednesday said Sri Lanka were right to run out England’s Jos Buttler, but felt he should have been recalled in the spirit of cricket.
“We should have got him out and then (Sri Lankan captain) Angelo (Mathews) called him back to play,” Ranatunga told AFP. “I am not blaming Angelo or (bowler) Sachithra (Senanayake), but that is what I would have done.
“Our (on field) warning to Buttler a couple of times may not go down in the record books but, if we recalled him, then it would be recorded and showed that we had properly warned him.”
Senanayake ran out Buttler as the non-striker backed up during Sri Lanka’s 3-2 series-clinching victory on Tuesday in the fifth and final one-day international at Edgbaston.
Sri Lankan captain Mathews, asked by the umpires if he wanted to uphold what was a legitimate appeal, did not call Buttler back and the wicketkeeper, whose blistering 121 had so nearly taken the hosts to victory in their narrow ODI defeat at Lord’s on Saturday, was out for 21.
Ranatunga, who led his country to a 1996 World Cup victory, insisted Sri Lanka were well within the rules of the game, but it would have been better if Butler was given another chance.
England captain Alastair Cook reacted furiously to the dismissal, saying a “line had been crossed” by the Sri Lankans.
But Sri Lanka’s chief selector and former skipper Sanath Jayasuriya said Buttler had received ample warning.
“No one can say our players did not warn Buttler,” Jayasuriya told AFP. “Beating England in May and June is not an easy thing for a foreign team. This means our game is good – our cricketers are good. We don’t have to worry about what they say.
“We warned Butler twice and got him out the third time. There is no issue with that.”
It was only the eighth reported instance of a batsman being run out backing up in an international match and the first since South Africa’s Peter Kirsten was dismissed by India’s Kapil Dev in 1992.
Even though ‘Mankading’, the term coined after India’s Vinoo Mankad ran out Australian non-striker Bill Brown during the 1947 Sydney Test, remains a legitimate dismissal, some regard it as against the spirit of the game.
Cook said he had never seen it before in a game.
“I was pretty disappointed with it, to be honest with you. You don’t know what you’d do if you were put in that situation, the heat of the moment, until you are. I’d hope I wouldn’t do it,” he said.