Ajantha Mendis is a freak, says Bandula Warnapura

by Anil John

26 October 2008: Ajantha Mendis is a ‘freaky phenomenon’ who could surpass spin greats Shane Warne and Muthiah Muralitharan if he stays injury-free for at least 10 years, Sri Lanka’s first Test captain has said.

Bandula Warnapura, who led Sri Lankan greats such as Roy Dias, Duleep Mendis and Arjuna Ranatunga against England when the island nation got Test status in 1982, even compared Mendis to Don Bradman, calling them ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ cricketers.

"From what I have seen so far of Mendis I have no hesitation in saying that he could be to bowling what the great Don Bradman was to batting," the former opener told the Gulf Times yesterday.

"In fact, if you permit me, I’d even say Mendis is a freak. He is a freaky phenomenon, a once-in-a-lifetime player like Bradman who could break all records if he stays healthy," enthused Warnapura, who is visiting Qatar as part of his work as a development officer with the Asian Cricket Council (ACC).

"Look at Bradman. He has a Test match average of 99.96. Can anyone beat it? Never. Mendis could also end up breaking all bowling records," predicted Warnapura.

Mendis shot into the limelight at the Asia Cup earlier this year where he foxed batsmen by sometimes bowling six different balls in one over. His mesmerising spells helped Sri Lanka win the tournament beating India and Pakistan in the process.

Bowling off a longish run-up, he delivers a mixture of googlies, off-breaks, top-spinners, flippers and leg-breaks and is credited with inventing the carom ball, a fizzing delivery released with a flick of his middle finger.

In the final of the Asia Cup against India he claimed figures of 6 for 13 and his 17 scalps in the event earned him the man of the series award.

Mendis proved his performance at the Asia Cup was no fluke when he made his Test debut against India last July and almost single-handedly routed them, taking a whopping 26 wickets in three Tests which Sri Lanka won 2-1.

His first scalp was Rahul ‘The Wall’ Dravid bowled by the carrom ball that pegged back the batsman’s off-stump after pitching on middle. He claimed eight wickets for 132 in the Test, the best figures recorded by a Sri Lankan bowler making his debut.

Mendis was praised to the skies by the master Muralitharan himself after the match.

"When I started playing Test cricket, I was not as good as Mendis. He is exceptional. He is the future of Sri Lankan cricket," Muralitharan said.

Mendis collected his first ten-wicket haul in the very next match, but Sri Lanka lost the match thanks to a double century by Virender Sehwag and some fine bowling by Harbhajan Singh who also claimed 10 wickets.. But with 26 wickets (ave.18.38) in the series, Mendis set a world record for most scalps by a bowler on his debut in a three-Test by series.

Mendis won the player of the series award for his efforts and the Indians’ reputation as the best players of spin bowling took a hammering. Adding insult to injury was the fact that the Sri Lankans lived up to captain Mahela Jayawardene’s promise of not allowing Sachin Tendulkar to break Brian Lara’s Test record of most runs on Lankan soil.

Warnapura said Mendis made his international debut at the right time.

"Some say Mendis should have been thrust onto the world stage much earlier, but if you ask me he was introduced at just about the perfect time because many promising spinners have just faded away after making their debuts as teenagers," said Warnapura.

"At 23 Mendis was seasoned enough. He had the maturity to handle pressure unlike some so-called prodigies who just disappeared after being mauled, their confidence totally shattered.

"They were not ready, but the selectors were ready to expose them and they suffered badly."

Warnapura will fly to Tehran today to assess the game’s development in Iran.

- Copyright by Island 2008.10.27

Mystery Spinner - Uncovered

Gideon Haigh's biography of Iverson painstakingly unearths the story of a talented misfit

Steven Lynch

October 18, 2008

Suddenly "mystery spin" is back in the cricket news, thanks to Ajantha Mendis of Sri Lanka. Mendis' mesmerising carrom delivery, flicked out by a finger curled up underneath the ball, has only been seriously attempted in international cricket before by a couple of Australians: there was John Gleeson, for a few years from the late 1960s, and a generation before that, there was Jack Iverson.

Big and awkward, Iverson couldn't bat, and he couldn't field. He was mentally fragile, convinced that he could never get certain batsmen out, and easily discouraged. All round, as his biographer claims, he was probably the worst pure cricketer ever to play at the highest level.

But what Iverson could do was bowl, mainly using the homespun finger-flicking method he'd honed by fooling around with a table-tennis ball, and he was remarkably accurate with it. In his one Test series, against England in 1950-51 when he was already 35, he took 21 wickets at 15.23, confounding several decent players of orthodox spin. In a short first-class career - 34 matches over five seasons - he claimed 157 wickets at less than 20 apiece. Many judges, Richie Benaud and Keith Miller among them, thought that Iverson would have won Australia the 1953 Ashes series (they eventually lost it 0-1), but worried by what he thought was a loss of form, Iverson had played only twice for Victoria in the preceding home season.

Such a short career doesn't, on the face of it, seem to warrant a biography running to nearly 400 pages. If the writer was anyone other than the erudite Gideon Haigh, you'd be worried by the admission that he never met Iverson, who committed suicide in 1973, and never saw him bowl (mind you, they did go the same school). Others might have resorted to listing the matches Iverson played and reeling off tedious club performances, but that's not the Haigh style, fortunately. He spoke to everyone he could who had seen Iverson play. He tracked down his daughters (one of whom wasn't terribly co-operative at first) and his sister. And he looked up obscure articles in the Tarrengower Times (reading every edition from 1934 to 1936, the years when Iverson was working nearby) and the Romsey Examiner. At the end you really feel you know this mystery man. The whole thing is a delight, a gripping (no pun intended) read, and an object lesson to anyone tempted to try their hand at biography.

From the book:
"I was offered myriad examples of Jack's cricket naivety, particularly in the field. Apparently, he sometimes had difficulty remembering the names of fielding positions - Lindsay Hassett would have to point out where he wanted Jack to stand. He also found elusive the understanding that fielders should move in as the bowler approached - he preferred to stand still, and rarely tried to stop a ball running either side of him.

On the field, he sometimes said things that to lifetime cricketers sounded a little strange. Bill Johnston recalls how, during the first Shield match he played with Jack for Victoria at the Adelaide Oval in November 1950, Jack came up to him between overs while Lance Duldig was batting and said: 'You've got to get this fellow out, Bill.'

'Hang on,' Johnston replied. 'You've got eight balls in your over, same as I have.'

'Well,' said Jack, 'he got a century against us last time.' Johnston walked away wondering at the assumption that a batsman who'd scored a century once would naturally do so again.

[But] no-one ever seems to have been too fussed by Jack's idiosyncrasies, and no-one told a story against Jack more often than Jack himself."

Mystery Spinner: The Story of Jack Iverson
by Gideon Haigh
Text Publishing, 1999

Steven Lynch is the editor of the Cricinfo Guide to International Cricket

© Cricinfo

Ajantha Mendis at Presentation of the Final T20 Series

Jayasuriya and Mendis hand Sri Lanka title

Cricinfo staff

October 13, 2008

Sri Lanka 133 for 5 (Jayasuriya 40, Malik 2-17) beat Pakistan 132 for 7 (Butt 44, Mendis 3-23) by five wickets
Scorecard

	Sanath Jayasuriya pulls one of his big sixes during a blistering 40 © AFP

A Twenty20 round-robin in Canada does little to set hearts fluttering. Yet when Shoaib Akhtar steams in to bowl at Sanath Jayasuriya and Co, the venue is of little importance. Unfortunately for Pakistan, Shoaib has yet to rediscover his accuracy, and it was Jayasuriya who won the battle, leading Sri Lanka to a convincing five-wicket win in the final of the T20 Canada at King City.

In stark contrast to Pakistan's, Sri Lanka's batsmen set off in frantic pursuit of 133, in front of a boisterous crowd of 9000. Jayasuriya and Mahela Udawatte put on a match-altering 66 in seven overs, though they were indebted to a predictably wayward start from Pakistan's trio of fast bowlers, Shoaib, Sohail Tanvir and, chief culprit of all, Umar Gul.

Jayasuriya shot out of the traps and never allowed Shoaib to settle. Flicking him for four in his first over, he then pulled him for consecutive sixes into the midwicket stand, the second of which went AWOL. Udawatte was no less aggressive, but such was Gul's persistently short length that he spent most of his time on the back foot. A hook for six was followed by a flayed cut for four, and a slice past point scorched the outfield. Sri Lanka's fifty came up inside five overs.

So, it was to spin that Pakistan turned and it brought immediate results when Shahid Afridi - who earlier managed only 14 with the bat - beat Udawatte in flight and had him caught at long-off. Afridi's partner at the other end, Shoaib Malik, then bowled Jayasuriya, and followed it up with the prized wicket of Mahela Jayawardene - both batsmen fell attempting the sweep. They made it five when Kaushalya Weeraratne was bowled in Gul's second spell, but it was all too little, too late, and Chamara Kapugedera's calm 17 guided Sri Lanka to their first win over Pakistan in Twenty20 internationals.

That Sri Lanka were allowed to chase such an attainable target was thanks to their own spin-attack, namely Ajantha Mendis, whose three wickets stifled Pakistan's middle order. Salman Butt played a steady hand for his 44, but wickets fell at crucial moments around him, and Pakistan's innings never gained true momentum. Misbah-ul-Haq cracked two fours in a spirited 25, but no one could truly get on top of Mendis, who ended the tournament with 11 wickets for a frugally economical 55 runs.

Ajantha Mendis took the Man of the Series award for his 11 wickets in 3 matches in the tournament. He presented by an Apartment in Dubai's Highest tower.

© Cricinfo

Mendis took 4/17 against Canada

Canada v Sri Lanka, T20 Canada, King City

Sri Lanka made to sweat by Cheema

Cricinfo staff

October 12, 2008

Sri Lanka 153 for 7 (Jayawardene 35, Dilshan 26) beat Canada 138 (Cheema 68, Mendis 4-17) by 15 runs
Scorecard

Sri Lanka held their nerve to quell the plucky resistance of Canada, whose opener, Rizwan Cheema, struck an entertaining 43-ball 68 which so nearly caused an unlikely upset. Sri Lanka now face Pakistan, who earlier eased past Zimbabwe, in tomorrow's final.

Cheema's fireworks gave Sri Lanka plenty to be concerned about as Canada chased a challenging 154 for victory. However, as is the trend among Associate nations facing the likes of Sri Lanka and Pakistan, one man does not make a team. The rest of Canada folded with Ajantha Mendis grabbing four as Sri Lanka won by 15 runs.

Nevertheless, Cheema made sure Canada didn't go down without a fight. Striking some of the biggest sixes in the tournament, he went some way in proving that anyone with a good eye (and a heavy bat) can take on the giants, particular in this format of the game. And what made his riposte so entertaining was that Dilhara Fernando had reduced Canada to 14 for 3. Fernando was carved for four over midwicket before Cheema whacked the first of his six sixes out of the ground. Again, he swung at Kaushalya Weeraratne to crack another before slog-sweeping Sanath Jayasuriya into the deep midwicket stand.

Weeraratne was clubbed for two more fours and Cheema raced to 34-ball fifty with the biggest of the lot: a nonchalant flick off his toes over midwicket. At the halfway point, Canada were 80 for 3 and beginning to believe the unbelievable. However, Sri Lanka's class spinner, Mendis, returned in the 11th over and had Sunil Dhaniram trapped lbw, effectively ending Canada's worthy resistance by now exposing the tail. Cheema went on to scorch six sixes and four fours in an innings that, although it was in vain, at least held up Sri Lanka's stroll to victory.

The difference between the two sides is highlighted in their scorecards. Sri Lanka's top scorer was Mahela Jayawardene with 35, and though they lost seven wickets, there were only two single-digit scores in what was a reasonable all-round batting performance. Jayawardene looked in particularly elegant touch, pulling Eion Katchay effortlessly for six before stepping onto the front foot to drive classily through the covers. He fell lbw to Balaji Rao, Canada's legspinner, who returned admirable figures of 3 for 21.

There were late-order fireworks from Dilhara Lokuhettige and Nuwan Kulasekara that helped Sri Lanka set Canada an unlikely 154. If only they had one or two more like Cheema in their squad, Canada might have stood a genuine chance of an upset.

© Cricinfo

Ajantha took 4/15 on T20I Debut

Sri Lanka v Zimbabwe, T20 Canada, King City

Sri Lanka made to work for victory

Cricinfo staff

October 10, 2008

Sri Lanka 107 for 5 (Dilshan 33, Price 2-9) beat Zimbabwe 106 for 8 (Taibu 45*, Mendis 4-15) by five wickets
Scorecard

Sri Lanka opened the T20 Canada tournament in King City with a five-wicket win against Zimbabwe, but were made to work hard chasing 107 in a match reduced to 17 overs per side by early-morning rain. Ray Price bowled a superb economical spell of left-arm spin, and a couple of run-outs increased the pressure, however Sri Lanka's middle order completed the chase with an over to spare in front of a few hundreds spectators.

Tillakaratne Dilshan and Mahela Udawatte began briskly, adding 36 in four overs, before Udawatte was caught behind. Price caused problems from the start and debutant Jeevantha Kulatunga struggled for 20 balls - and was dropped at deep midwicket - until being bowled for 8. A mild dose of panic hit the middle order as Thilina Kandamby was run out trying for a quick single, followed next ball by captain Mahela Jayawardene who fell without facing. It's a long way to come to not face a ball.

Dilshan was playing neatly, but in the next over he became Price's second scalp and suddenly Sri Lanka's reply was far from smooth at 77 for 5. It was proving tough to score against the spinners, while there was a hint of rustiness from Sri Lanka who only arrived in Canada two days ago.

However, no one could quite match Price's effort and when he finished his four-over spell the pressure was released. Chamara Kapugedera and Farveez Maharoof both hit sixes to calm the nerves and the sixth-wicket pair finished the match with an over to spare.

Zimbabwe's efforts in the field were commendable, but their batting let them down after a delayed start due to a damp outfield. Sri Lanka's bowlers proved a tough proposition with Maharoof nipping out two with the new ball, Thilan Thushara a brace in the middle and Ajantha Mendis - on his Twenty20 debut - four at the end.

Tatenda Taibu, the former captain, offered the most prolonged resistance as he finished on 45 off 47 deliveries to push Zimbabwe into three figures. He was at the crease in the fourth over after Maharoof removed both openers and Thushara, the left-arm quick, further dented Zimbabwe's progress with a tight spell of 2 for 19.

Mendis has proved too good for far better players than Zimbabwe's lower order and he helped himself to a few easy pickings. Elton Chigumbura was caught behind and Prosper Utseya was stranded by Mendis' carrom ball, which turns away from the right-handers. Sri Lanka weren't at their best, but it was still enough to clear the first hurdle.

© Cricinfo