TAUNTON: Indian spinner Murali Kartik faced a hostile English crowd and criticism after running out a batsman who had backed up too far down the pitch _ behavior seen as “not cricket” by cricket traditionalists.    

In an English county championship game between Somerset and Surrey, Kartik was bowling for Surrey on Thursday when he ran out 20-year-old batsman Alex Barrow by suddenly stopping in his run-up and removing the bails with the batsman out of his ground.

It has traditionally been seen as unacceptable to dismiss a batsman in this way _ known in cricket as “Mankading” _ unless he has been warned previously. Kartik said he had already warned Barrow two balls earlier.

Batsmen at the non-batting end leave their crease as the bowler delivers the ball to try to make quick runs. The laws of cricket were changed last year to make mankading a more acceptable method of dismissing a batsman.

But Somerset fans jeered Kartik and his captain Gareth Batty when they refused to withdraw the bowler's appeal for dismissal, which would have allowed Barrow to continue batting.

Batty's refusal to withdraw the appeal left umpire Peter Hartley no choice but to give Barrow out.

“You are a disgrace to cricket,” one Somerset supporter shouted as the players left the field for the tea interval.

Batty said he had not intended to breach cricket's traditional sense of fair play.

“People obviously think that the spirit of the game has been brought into disrepute,” he said.

“That was not my intention and I thoroughly apologise for that.”

Kartik tweeted: “Everyone get a life please...if a batsman is out on a stroll in spite of being warned, does that count as being in the spirit of the game?”

In February, India captain Virender Sehwag withdrew an appeal after one of his bowlers ran out Sri Lanka batsman Lahiru Thirimanne during a one-day international.