R Ashwin slams Rishabh Pant for withdrawing Digvesh Rathi’s ‘Mankad’ appeal

Ravichandran Ashwin has stated that Lucknow Super Giants captain Rishabh Pant shouldn’t have withdrawn Digvesh Rathi’s run-out appeal against Royal Challengers Bengaluru’s Jitesh Sharma in their last game of the 2025 Indian Premier League (IPL) season on Tuesday. The match may have been utterly inconsequential for LSG but it was not devoid of drama. Among the last acts was Rathi attempting to run out a marauding Jitesh Sharma at the non-striker’s end, popularly known as a ‘Mankad’ appeal.
Replays showed LSG captain Rishabh Pant seemingly withdrawing the appeal just as the third umpire’s decision of ‘not out’ was shown on the jumbotron in Lucknow. “Until now, everything was right. But after that, commentators started saying that Pant has withdrawn the appeal – what an amazing act of sportsmanship. Grow out of this,” Ashwin said on his Youtube channel
Ashwin has played a significant role in bringing the conversation around this mode of dismissal to the mainstream after he ran out Jos Buttler while playing for the Punjab Kings against Rajasthan Royals in the 2019 IPL. Incidentally, he had himself been in a similar position to Rathi in 2012 during an ODI against Sri Lanka in the 2012 Commonwealth Bank series at the Gabba. At the time, though, captain Virender Sehwag after a chat with Sachin Tendulkar. Ashwin clarified that his estimation of Pant remains as high as ever and that one of the reasons he is looking forward to India’s upcoming Test series in England just to see the wicketkeeper-batter in full flow.
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“But just imagine Digvesh Rathi is your son, and his captain has criticised his decision in front of crores of people. It’s actually gone over the board. Because a captain’s job is actually to back a player,” said Ashwin.
“It is actually a humiliation. What happens is a bowler feels so small that he will never do it [again]. And people will come and say in the comments here that he should not do it. Why? Why should it not be done?
“Digvesh Rathi is not my relative, he is not my friend. I don’t know who he is. But I am saying, you scar a bowler so much doing this, that it will really affect him. But because nobody really cares about a bowler, in front of crores of people the appeal will be withdrawn and he can be insulted like this.”
Ashwin said that it was upto the third umpire to decide if it was out or not and that Pant never needed to withdraw the appeal. “Let’s talk about cricket for a second. According to the Laws of the Game, it went upstairs, the umpire said not out, and it is not out. There is no scene of withdrawal [of the appeal] in this,” he said.