It can be argued that the greatest player in the history of cricket is chiefly responsible for the legal existence of an act that most infuriates players and fans, and which contravenes the spirit of the game. As a batsman, the most sought-after milestone is the century. Sir Donald Bradman, being the legend that he was, averaged 100 throughout his first-class career until a final-innings duck dropped him a smidgin under that number.

So when “The Don” opened his mouth, people tended to listen.

The date was November 13, 1947, the occasion being the penultimate warm-up game between the touring Indians and an Australian XI at Sydney Cricket Ground before a five-match Test series. On the final day of four, in the Australian XI second innings, opening bat Bill Brown was run out by first-change bowler Mulvantrai Himmatlal Mankad, latterly known as Vinoo Mankad.

The difference from the norm for a typical dismissal on this occasion was that the ball had not been bowled, with Mankad spotting Brown, the non-striker or batsman at the bowler’s end, out of his crease.

Having previously given the batsman a warning, Mankad ran in as if to bowl and simply broke the wicket. The Australian umpire George Borwick was the man who ruled on that historic instance of a batsman being run out for “backing up” too far.

Had Mankad known that he would finish with figures of eight for 84, the game might have never known such an unfulfilling mode of dismissal.

One month later, in the second Test match, also at the SCG, with several thousand more in attendance than the 3,855 who witnessed a controversial first, the same combination of events was repeated — W R Brown run out (Mankad) 18.

It led to widespread uproar but Bradman, the Australia captain, defended the Indian on the day and later repeated that stance in his autobiography.

“For the life of me, I can’t understand why [the press] questioned his sportsmanship,” wrote Bradman, who scored his 100th first-class century in that match. “The Laws of Cricket make it quite clear that the non-striker must keep within his ground until the ball has been delivered. If not, why is the provision there which enables the bowler to run him out? By backing up too far or too early, the non-striker is very obviously gaining an unfair advantage.”

And with that most significant seal of approval, Mankading, as it has come to be known, became an accepted although little-used part of cricket.

Being a “gentleman’s sport”, Laws of Cricket and Spirit of Cricket tend to fit hand in glove. The first envelopes the second but it is the second that gives cricket its allure, setting it apart from most sports for the level of sportsmanship applied, with the possible exception of rugby union. Which is why the act of Mankading is generally frowned upon and why it has been repeated in international cricket on only eight occasions since it was first seen by a wide audience 69 years ago.

That most recent occasion was on Tuesday at the Under-19 World Cup in Bangladesh, where a decisive group-stage match between West Indies and Zimbabwe ended on a Mankad. The young Zimbabweans were distraught at losing in such a fashion, by two runs, especially because their batsman had not been warned; nor had he been attempting to gain an unfair advantage.

Replays appear inconclusive, which would normally give the benefit of the doubt to the batsman, but he was sent on his way by the television umpire and West Indies advanced to a quarter-final date with Pakistan in a most unedifying fashion.

For all that Mankading is frowned upon — the number of international dismissals might have been higher had sporting captains and teams not withdrawn their appeals — there is overwhelming support for preventing batsmen from stealing runs.

The early returns yesterday from an ESPNCricinfo poll showed that, of 46,225 respondents, 87 per cent supported its retention, although significantly more than half that number preferred if at least one warning was issued first.

As with most unsavoury global trends, Mankading has reared its ugly head in Bermuda and remains to this day, especially at the business end of closely fought matches.

However, few among our unscrupulous types of the past or present are of a mind to adopt the stance taken by Courtney Walsh, who refused to run out Saleem Jaffer in the last over of a World Cup match in 1987 that Pakistan won off the final ball.

It was a result that ensured that West Indies, then a dominant force globally, would fail to reach the semi-finals for the first time in the history of the event.

Walsh was roundly praised for withdrawing his appeal, winning millions of hearts on the sub-continent and worldwide, with one fan going so far as to present him with a hand-woven carpet.

It is at odds with Walsh, now long retired, that those who have followed in his footsteps under the West Indies flag would resort to winning a match in that fashion.

Ian Bishop, a commentator at the match on Tuesday and a former international team-mate of Walsh’s, said that he would not have attempted what Keemo Paul, a 17-year-old from Guyana, did. However, despite all the controversy it has caused leading into this week’s ICC annual meetings, he could not justify a witch-hunt, either.

Therein lies the dilemma: damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

The conclusion is that Mankading is within the Laws but against the spirit if a batsman has not been previously warned — and it is definitely not what we want to be teaching our young players.