Tweaking Mendis the right way

June 29, 2008

	Ajantha Mendis comes as a breath of fresh air in an age of robotic, over-coached, mechanical players © AFP

Cricket has changed. And one of the most unwanted changes is that it is now littered with too many robotic, over-coached, mechanical players. It's not hard to see why: technology is better than before, it's easy to spot flaws in, say, a bowler's action even before he makes it to the highest level. The stakes are higher than before, and a pursuit for perfection at times leads to homogenisation of skills. But even in this day and age, Sri Lankan cricket is a breeze of fresh air.

There has to be something right with the system where Sanath Jayasuriya, Muttiah Muralitharan, and Lasith Malinga all escaped coaches who would want to correct them. There has to be something good with the system that no-one went up to Ajantha Mendis, in his formative years, and asked him to make up his mind as to whether he wanted to be an offspinner, a legspinner, a non-spinner, or a medium-pacer, or whatever he wanted to call himself. Or we would not be fortunate enough to see the marvels of Mendis today. The freakiest part about his bowling is he doesn't get into unnatural positions, doesn't seem to make a lot of violent actions using his wrist and fingers; he just caresses them out of his hand.

When Mendis came in to bowl today, Pakistan had scored 99 for 2 in 23 overs, and it was not beyond their middle order to pull the chase off. But in his second over of bowling stuff that not many know how to classify, he struck with a topspinner to get Mohammad Yousuf, no less. Then he got the well-set Shoaib Malik with a middle-finger-flicked legbreak, and finished up with two more wickets off straighter ones to quell Pakistan's chances. Of all the various deliveries, the topspinner proved to be the most lethal today. On a track where the ball is spinning, a straighter one can be the most lethal, and so it was with Mendis' topspinner today.

"We don't correct our cricketers," Mahela Jayawardene said after Sri Lanka's comprehensive win. "That's something entirely wrong if you do that. We encourage them to be as natural as possible and just guide them in the right direction. That's all we do.

"We have a spinners' clinic, and a fast bowlers' academy. He [Mendis] was picked up when he was playing Division II cricket for the Army back home. When he was picked we knew he had a lot of potential. Even though he didn't have control initially, he went through the academy for about a year or so. After then we knew he was ready so we picked him for provincial cricket. It was important to have him with Murali at the same time before he [Murali] finishes."

Captaining such a bowler, especially setting fields for him, can never be easy. Jayawardene, though, is taking it easy with Mendis. "He actually came up with six deliveries when he came to the spinners' clinic," Jayawardene said. "What we told him was to let us know what he had more control with. We have asked him to use that delivery more right now, and he will keep improving on the other ones.

	Depending on the batsmen and where they are looking to attack him, we have a chat with him. That's where the [Sinhalese] language comes in handy because the others [opponents] don't understand what we are speakingMahela Jayawardene reveals a trick

"We have asked him to do what he is comfortable with. I have sat down with him, and have given him a few fielding set-ups where we can actually manage to cover all areas so that we don't have to make changes for his different deliveries. We have a basic set-up where the batsman also is not sure what to expect."

And if the batsman has managed to unsettle him, it is not the eventual triumph for him. "Depending on the batsmen and where they are looking to attack him, we have a chat with him. That's where the [Sinhalese] language comes in handy because the others [opponents] don't understand what we are speaking."

Mendis is definitely another chapter in the art of spin bowling. So far in his career, Mendis, with his variations, has proved incredibly difficult to get away when the batsmen are looking to score quick runs. In limited-overs cricket, the batsmen come at him; he doesn't have to lure them into throwing their wickets away, an essential part of a spin bowler's arsenal - something he will definitely have to do in Test cricket. So far he has deceived batsmen who have been more adventurous; it remains to be seen if he can set up heists against more circumspect opponents.

The Future of Sri Lankan Spin

The three-match ODI series between Sri Lanka and West Indies was not just about the hosts winning it 2-0, but also the introduction to international cricket of the new spinning phenomenon Ajantha Mendis. With Shane Warne having quit the scene two years ago and two of his contemporaries Muttiah Muralitharan and Anil Kumble nearing the end of their illustrious careers, it seemed spin was headed for a period of isolation in world cricket.

It had been that way until the early '90s when Warne, Murali and Kumble came onto the scene to keep the art of slow bowling in the limelight for more than a decade. But from the moment the Sri Lanka captain Mahela Jayawardene threw the ball to Mendis in the first ODI in Port-of-Spain, a new spin star was born to world cricket.

In his maiden international appearance Mendis had the cricket world in a spin with the way he conjured his deliveries to leave the West Indies batsmen flummoxed. Classified as an offspinner, Mendis could bowl five different deliveries in one over, which always kept the batsmen guessing.

The secret of his success has been the ability to be accurate with every delivery while at the same time displaying variety. Rob Steen on Cricinfo said: "I have just seen the future of spin bowling - and his name is Ajantha Mendis."

The veteran West Indies cricket writer Tony Becca wrote in the Jamaica Gleaner: "Mendis bowls everything. With a smile on his face as he caresses the ball before delivering it, he bowls the offbreak, he bowls the legbreak, he bowls the googly, he bowls the flipper, he bowls a straight delivery, he bowls them with different grips and different actions, he bowls them with a different trajectory and at a different pace, and he disguises them brilliantly. The result is that he mesmerises, or bamboozles, batsmen."

Dwayne Bravo, the West Indies allrounder, said: "To be honest, when we saw his stats - after 19 first-class matches, he had 111 wickets at an average of 14.54 - we knew he had to be bowling something good. Ramnaresh Sarwan had problems picking him, and from the time we saw this, most of the batsmen retreated to the dressing room, and had a close look at his hand on the TV monitor.

"I actually went and had a look at his hand on the computer, and it was still really difficult to pick him, but I found that once you are prepared to watch the ball closely, it is half the job done. He is a very good bowler, and we will have to go back to [the] drawing board to try to come up with a way to score off his bowling freely."

Jerome Jayaratne, the Sri Lanka Cricket Academy coach, said: "Mendis is unusual, freaky and has developed a ball which could be described as a 'flicker', which he releases with a snap of his fingers, which is very unusual compared to other orthodox spin bowlers." That ball is reminiscent of the former Australia spinner Johnny Gleeson, who had a similar delivery.

It has coined the term 'carrom ball' by Sri Lankan cricket enthusiast and connoisseur Mahendra Mapagunaratne, who lives in Toronto, because Mendis flicks his finger as would a carrom player flick a disc. The carrom ball is the newest invention in bowling since the doosra.

For all the adulation he received in his brief introduction to international cricket these are early days for Mendis, who has still a long way to go before he can be spoken of as Murali's successor. But the excitement he created with his first three wickets - Chris Gayle, Darren Sammy and Jerome Taylor - was more than enough for scribes to start comparing him with other spin bowling greats.

This has happened in the past to many young players who failed to live up to the expectations. One hopes Mendis fulfils the aspirations and proves a worthy successor to Muralitharan when the he finally quits the scene.

Mendis' selection to the Sri Lanka one-day team hardly raised an eyebrow. He had completed a successful second season of first-class cricket with Sri Lanka Army SC finishing on top of the national bowling averages, taking 68 wickets at an startling average of 10.51 and a strike-rate of 28.8. Thanks largely to Mendis, Army SC emerged champions of Premier Tier B.

As Army SC were playing in a lower tier, they did not get the same attention as the clubs in the more prestigious Tier A. Week after week Mendis kept on taking a haul of wickets but his name hardly figured in the headlines, that was until Army SC won the title and qualified for promotion to Tier A next season.

Mendis's one-time coach at the Sri Lanka Army, Saman Hewavitharana, under whose watchful eyes Mendis developed, described him as a 'spin mix bowler' because he uses so many different deliveries in one over. "When he joined the Army he had only the offbreak and legbreak," Hewavitharana said. "But on his own he started developing other deliveries at practice.

"All credit should go to him for the types of deliveries he bowls. He developed them all on his own by experimenting. All we did with Mendis is that we polished his bowling action and fine-tuned him. I have videoed his bowling and whenever he finds that he is not bowling with his usual rhythm I show him where he is going wrong. That way Mendis has corrected his faults and turned into a match-winning bowler."

Hewavitharana predicts Mendis will turn out to be a better bowler than Muralitharan and a better allrounder than Chaminda Vaas. "When Muralitharan broke into international cricket he had only the off spinner and top spinner," he said. "Mendis has five varieties. The secret of Mendis' success is his strong fingers with which he grips and flicks the ball.

"He is also not overawed by the big names in the game, which is a plus factor. I am sure he will make a greater impression in Test cricket where he will be able to get a lot of wickets through bat-pad catches. Few people realise Mendis' capabilities as a batsman. He bats at No. 3 or 4 for the Army and Sri Lanka can utilise him as an allrounder in the team."

Mendis was a nobody at Kadalana St Anthony's Vidyalaya where cricket was a nonentity. He was actually discovered and brought to Moratu Maha Vidyalaya by Lucky Rogers Fernando, an outstanding school cricketer in the Duleep Mendis mould. Ajantha proved an instance success winning the best bowler's prize in 2002 and 2003 in the traditional big match against Sri Sumangala College, Panadura.

"I joined the Army to play cricket," said Mendis, whose late father was a member of the Catamarans SC and played cricket. Mendis, a private in the Army, said he has been inspired by watching Muralitharan bowl. "I learnt to bowl top spin and the flipper while I was at the Spin Academy under Ruwan Kalpage. I am now working on the doosra."