The Big Bash League’s most experienced player has put forward a rule change that could drastically shake up the competition, with Sixers skipper Moises Henriques calling on batters to be penalised one run if they leave the non-striker’s end early.
Henriques, 38, has played 141 matches in the BBL and has seen plenty of rule tweaks throughout his glittering career in Sydney.
But when asked what he would change if he was in charge of the game, Henriques didn’t hesitate to demand the batting side cop a penalty if people left their crease early to gain an unfair advantage.
Batters have exploited the rule for years by sprinting out of their crease before the bowler has released the ball to give them a head start to get back for two if they want to keep a more aggressive teammate on strike.
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“The rule change I’d bring in is that the batter isn’t allowed to leave the non-striker’s crease early,” he said.
“If they leave early – irrelevant of whether you ‘Mankad’ them or not – it’s like minus a run or something like that.
“I just think that it’s getting to a stage late in games where there are two or three overs to go where batters are taking the mickey on how early they leave.”
The Mankad has been frowned upon for years despite being in the rules, with bowlers earning the ire of rivals and fans for daring to dislodge the bails when they see the non-striker leave their crease early.
Adam Zampa attempted one in early 2023 during a BBL game, with Henriques’ proposed rule change set to eliminate the need for bowlers to use to the controversial tactic.
“There’s this strange cricket thing that you’re not allowed to Mankad people and that it’s considered ungainly even though there’s a rule in the book for it,” he said.
“I think that ‘Mankading’ someone isn’t the problem – it’s the batters trying to cheat that’s the problem.
“For me, that’s the number one rule that I’d be trying to bring into T20 cricket because the number of twos that get run with three or four overs to go in a game because the non-striker is cheating and bowlers don’t want to be seen to be doing the thing that’s not in the spirit of cricket (is over the top) even though it’s in the rules.
“I think that’s the one thing that I’d like to change to bring in some sort of automatic ‘batter leaving early beeper’ or something like that.”
Fellow Sixer Daniel Hughes would also like to see a slight change to the rules which would allow specialist batters to be subbed out of games to bring on dynamic fielders who can pull off big plays.
“You can keep your older guys in the game a little bit longer, and then you bring your gun fielder on,” he said, with the Indian Premier League adopting an impact player rule where teams can swap a starting player to bring in a batter or bowler.
“The crowd wants to see great fielding and great catching, so if you’ve got an old fella that can’t move that much, it’s not great for the game and it’s not great viewing.
“If you can just have someone who’s a gun fielder come in as a substitute, I don’t mind that.
“I think they’re doing that around the world in different competitions, so I’d like to see us do that at some stage.”
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