Former India left-arm spinner Murali Kartik revealed that his wife once had to run away from the ground after he had ‘mankaded’ Alex Barrow in a County match in England in 2012. Karthik in a conversation with India off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin said the crowd had almost entered the dressing room during that Surrey vs Somerset match in which the left-armer was representing Surrey.
“My wife ran away from the ground. It was that kind of a threat with the crowd booing and all. They almost entered the dressing room,” Kartik told Ashwin in a YouTube interaction, on the latter’s show DRS with Ash.
Kartik, who represented India in 8 Tests, 39 ODIs and 1 T20I, was a regular in English county for many years. He played for Lancashire, Middlesex, Somerset and Surrey.
Kartik said he had even warned the batsman thrice before running him out for backing up.
“In my case, I warned the batsman thrice. They never spoke about that. Despite the warning, they are blaming the bowler. I am ready to run out all the 11 batsmen if they step out before I deliver the ball,” said Kartik.
“I had done it (Mankading) five times before but it became a controversy because I did it against Somerset, a club for which I had played for three years. Somerset was already upset that I went to Surrey. They had so many accusations against me – that my wife liked city life and that’s why I went to London, they must be paying him more, etc. So, Somerset was my previous team, which is why it became so huge.”
“I think Sri Lanka and England were playing at that time. Michael Holding, Nasser Hussain and Bumble (David Lloyd) – were all asked whether what Murali Kartik did was correct or wrong. All of them said, Murali Kartik was correct, the batsman was at fault,” he added.
While talking about Ashwin’s mankading of Jos Buttler, which had divided the cricket world, Kartik said he fought for the off-spinner on Twitter.
“Once you (Ashwin) did that to Jos Buttler (IPL 2019 Mankading), I took on everyone on Twitter and asked them, ‘How can you joke by blaming it on the bowler?’ ” said Kartik.
