'Batsmen are cheating': Ponting's verdict on Mankads

Australia legend Ricky Ponting says the Mankad rule is a bad look for cricket, but has placed the onus on batters to stop "cheating".

The controversial move came back into the spotlight during last year's Indian Premier League when Ravi Ashwin ran out Jos Buttler at the non-striker’s end before he had delivered the ball.

The action split the cricket world – Shane Warne called it "disgraceful" while Mitchell Johnson said it was fair game as it was in the rules.

Delhi Capitals coach Ponting, who will work with Ashwin this season after the off-spinner was traded from Kings XI Punjab to Delhi, has instructed his team not to Mankad, stressing that a warning should be sufficient to keep the non-striker in their ground.

But the former Test captain agrees that batters backing up out of their crease before the ball is released is against the rules and offenders could face a penalty as large as 10 runs.

"It shouldn't get to that stage anyway, batsmen shouldn't be cheating," Ponting told cricket.com.au from Dubai.

"That's what batsmen are doing, batsmen are actually cheating by trying to steal a yard or two here or there. It's something that needs to be addressed.

"When it happened last year, immediately I addressed it with our team because once it happened once in the IPL I felt that every team was going to try and exploit the same thing.

"So we sat down as a group and I told our boys and the leaders in our team were on board as well and we agreed we weren't going to do that, we weren't going to play that way.

"If it looked like a batsman was cheating and deliberately pinching a yard or two at the non-striker's end we would stop them and would warn them and make sure they kept coming back into their crease."

With Ponting, who sits on the MCC’s influential World Cricket committee, and Ashwin now both quarantining in the UAE, the 71-Test Indian has already called out the elephant in the room.

"He made me get on a podcast with him when I first arrived here to have a good open chat about it," Ponting said.

"I think we're both on the same page. He feels he did everything in the rules and laws of the game and he's absolutely right.

"He's saying, 'What if it's the last ball of the IPL, what if I'm bowling and the batting teams needs two runs to win and the non-striker is charging halfway down the wicket? What do you expect me to do?'

"There's an argument there as well, but as I said to him, I would expect that he would hold on to the ball and not Mankad and tell the batsman to stay in his crease next time and see if he's good enough to try and close the game out for us."

But Ponting wants the rule to be changed and not left to his players to make a judgement call.

"I think something has to happen with the laws of the game to make sure batsmen can't cheat and there certainly shouldn't be the Mankad rule the way it is," he said.

"I think if you bring in some sort of run penalty for the batsman if they're deliberately leaving their crease and pinching ground that might be the way to go about it.

"I'm sure those discussions are happening at the moment because I don't think it's a good look on the game when you see a Mankad happen.

"I think something is going to have to change."