It is one of the pre-eminent classical dance forms of India which originated in the Hindu temples of the eastern coastal state of Odisha in India.
It is a dance of love and passion touching on the divine and the human, the sublime and the mundane.
Odhra Magadha, mentioned in Natya Shastra can be identified as the earliest precursor of present day Odissi dance.
The techniques of dance movement are built around the two basic postures of the Chowk and the Tribhanga.
The chowk is a position imitating a square - a very masculine stance with the weight of the body equally balanced.
The tribhanga is a very feminine stance where the body is deflected at the neck, torso and the knees.
An Odissi orchestra essentially consists of a pakhawaj player (usually the Guru himself), a singer, a flutist, a sitar or violin player and a manjira player.
Mankading
Recently, in a cricket match of the Indian Premier League 2019 (IPL-2019) a batsman was dismissed in a run out popularly called ‘Mankading’.
Mankading’ is a method of run out where a bowler dismisses a non-striker by hitting the bails before bowling when the latter is outside the crease.
It is named after an Indian bowler Vinoo Mankad (awarded Padma Bhushan in 1973). Vinoo Mankad, in the India's tour of Australia in 1947/48 ran out Bill Brown not once but twice.
This infuriated the Australian media, and running someone out in this way is now referred to around the world as "Mankading”.
While perfectly legal, some contend that by convention, a bowler should at least warn a batsman who persists in backing up too far before dismissing him in that fashion.
According to rules of Cricket:
Non-striker leaving his/her ground early: If the non-striker is out of his/her ground from the moment the ball comes into play to the instant when the bowler would normally have been expected to release the ball, the bowler is permitted to attempt to run him/her out.
Whether the attempt is successful or not, the ball shall not count as one in the over.
The Laws of Cricket were amended several times after this incident, but it was decided to retain this form of run out to disallow batsmen from stealing runs.
There have been instances where the bowlers refrained from using this method, like the 1987 World Cup match between Pakistan and West Indies.
