Ajantha Mendis hurts Zimbabweans | Srilanka's Tour of Zimbabwe 2008

November 12, 2008:

Sri Lanka began their tour of Zimbabwe in bullish fashion, dismissing a Zimbabwe Select XI for 159 on a rain-affected first day of their warm-up match in Bulawayo. Ajantha Mendis picked up four wickets and in reply, Upul Tharanga and Mahela Udawatte propelled the tourists to 50 without loss in 14 overs.

The umpires twice suspended play because of drizzle and eventually ended the day 20 minutes early due to bad light.

Zimbabwe’s innings began poorly when Chamu Chibhabha steered a very wide delivery to gully, and it never gained any real momentum other than a brief seventh-wicket renaissance of 46 from Elton Chigumbura and Prosper Utseya which lent the score a degree of respectability. They missed the experience and bravery of Tatenda Taibu, who was dropped in rather odd circumstances. Dilhara Fernando took full advantage early on, picking up two of the first four wickets to fall, including the promising Hamilton Masakadza leg-before for 26.

It wasn’t long before Mendis was brought into the attack and he soon bowled Regis Chakabva to get his name on the scoreboard. When he followed that up with the wicket of Keith Dabengwa, also bowled, Zimbabwe had slipped to 90 for 6. However, Chigumbura and Utseya staved off the collapse with a vital seven-wicket stand of 46.

Aware of the situation, both players dropped anchor and gradually shovelled Zimbabwe’s total past 100, but Fernando returned to have Utseya caught behind for 22 while Chigumbura - who had spent over two hours at the crease - was beaten by Mendis. Angelo Mathews mopped up a flaccid tail.

Zimbabwe squandered an early chance when Mahela Udawatte edged Christopher Mpofu but Stuart Matsikenyeri at second slip failed to hold onto a routine catch. Tharanga went on the attack and cracked five fours in his unbeaten 31 while Udawatte ended on 17 as Sri Lanka made brisk headway to reach 50 in 14 overs.

Unless the weather plays a major part, this match appears unlikely to go into a fourth day.

Brief scores: Sri Lankans 50 for 0 (Tharanga 31*, Udawatte 17*) trail Zimbabwe Select XI 159 (Chigumbura 33, Mendis 4-59) by 109 runs

Ajantha Mendis is a freak, says Lanka’s first Test captain Bandula Warnapura

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.”

Must-Read Books >> | 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

The legend of Splendid Mendis | by Damith S

Legend has it that Splendid was conceived at the foot of the mythical Adams peak. Thus people believe this is where Mendis draws his supernatural powers, enabling him to run through a batting line up with a mere flick of his fingers. When Splendid Mendis entered this mortal earth, it is said that that he thanked his mother for her troubles and told his dad “Ill take it from here”. Splendid then proceeded to create a horse drawn carriage from a few sticks outside the hospital and pulled the thing himself with his parents on board and took them home. He later returned to pick up his dads car from the car park. At age 7 Splendid Mendis’s legend was known only to a select few in the outer regions of the country. But all that changed over night when, playing back yard cricket with his friends, Splendid dismissed the entire opposition by himself. That alone might not seem that impressive. But when he repeated the same 10 times over in the next 10 games everyone took notice. 3 years later , 10 year old Splendid completed his degrees. When he wanted to do a octagon degree – a combination of 8 different disciplines, no university offered it. So he studied in 25 universities at the same time and completed 25 different degrees. It was a combination of Mechanics, Mechatronics, Advanced Physics, Biology and some other thing even we cant pronounce. For his dissertation he did part time consultancy for NASA and promptly discovered a new universe. NASA offered to call it the Splendid Universe but Mendis shied away from the spot light. Splendid was a humble man from the beginning. At age 11 Splendid was picked by the Australian Cricket team and offered Aussie citizenship. He declined and instead went on to join the Sri Lankan army. Both the cricket team and military. Mendis once destroyed an entire fleet of rebel battleships with nothing but a leather ball and a flick of his legendary fingers. When not destroying rebel battalions Splendid was destroying batting line ups in club cricket at 12. He has taken a 1000 wickets in every season he has played in with a average of –(minus) 155. A recent poll conducted revealed that 99.99% of the males in Sri Lanka want to be Splendid Mendis. The 0.01% was Mendis himself. Another poll revealed that 87% of the worlds women want to sleep with Splendid. 100% of the men want the same. Mendis can drink 50 kegs of beer in one go. And still do 100 Everclear shots one after the other. Splendid was in fact picked for the Sri Lankan test team at age 13 but he declined as he dint want to steal the spotlight from Murali. The official name for Sri Lanka is actually The Republique of Ajantha Splendid Mendis, but its more commonly know as Sri Lanka, which is one of the many nick names for Splendid Mendis. The Large Hadron Collider project was actually in ruins before Splendid offered his help. He dug the tunnel and connected the tubes in 15 minutes. The first particle they will collide will be Splendid running in opposite direction at the same time. The Sri Lankan test team hired Mendis as a bowling Machine as net practice for their test tours to India but soon gave up the plan after 300 000 balls of playing and missing. Splendid coached Terry Jenner. His bowling average has reached minus infinity. Thrice. Shane Warne said he was glad he is not playing in the Era of The Splendid. Splendid doesn't use pick up lines. He merely looks at women and they want give him their number. Women have been asked not to look directly into his eyes. If they do they will shudder with multiple orgasms. Splendid has been nominated and has won the greatest human ever award in each of his 20 years on earth. This has largely gone unnoticed to the world because he has requested that his name be kept out of the papers. And Finally, Don Bradman has said that he would never have got a test run if Splendid had been around when he played.

These are but a mere snippet of the folklore surrounding the great man.
Many of his legendary feats have been lost through the times or been forgotten. However flyslip has dedicated himself to unveiling all the great stories surrounding Splendid.

Thanks to : http://fly-slip.blogspot.com/

Mendis to play for Rajasthan in Ranji

Sri Lankan spin sensation Ajantha Mendis will turn up for Rajasthan in the forthcoming Ranji Trophy season. The BCCI had recently allowed each state to rope in an international player in a bid to improve the status of the country's biggest domestic competition and Rajasthan seems to have made a big scoop in this regard. RCA sources confirmed that talks are on with Mendis and the deal is almost finalised. Mendis though first has to get a clearance from the Sri Lankan Army team, which he represents in the country's domestic competitions. The mystery spinner had bamboozled India with a six-wicket haul in the Asia Cup final and continued to trouble India during the Test series in Sri Lanka. He took an astonishing 26 wickets in just three Tests and carried on with his good form in the following five ODIs snapping 14 wickets. He was also honoured in the recent ICC awards ceremony. Bengal has already roped in the services of Mendis' teammate and ace spinner Muttiah Muralitharan.

T20 show makes Ajantha Mendis richer

The recently concluded four-nation Twenty20 tournament in Canada has made Sri Lanka's 23-year-old mystery bowler Ajantha Mendis richer. "He (Mendis) has been awarded an apartment in UAE," Atul Ahuja, Cricket Canada's CEO said from Toronto. "Mendis has been given this special prize by the sponsors (Al Barakah) of the tournament," he said. "The details of allotting the apartment in Ajman (UAE) is being worked out," he added. Mendis, who has had a sensational start to his international career, took 26 wickets in his debut Test series against India. The mystery spinner also bagged the man of the series award in the T20 competition, which Sri Lanka won by beating Pakistan in the final.

Canada T20 | Sri Lanka lifts Twenty20 Canada Cup thanks to Jayasuriya & Mendis show

TORONTO, Oct. 13 (APP):- Sri Lanka lifted the inaugural Al-Barakah Twenty20 Canada Cup Cricket Championship at Maple Leaf Stadium on Monday in style with five wickets win over Pakistan in the final with Ajantha Mendis and Sanath Jayasuriya leading the way. Sri Lankan mystery spinner Ajantha Mendis captured top wickets for 23 runs in four over as Pakistan inserted to bat first, were restricted to 132 for the loss of seven wickets in 20 overs. Sri Lanka after little hiccups in reply romped home for the loss of five wickets with one over to spare. Veteran Jayasuriya set the tune for victory with a dazzling knock of 40 in 34 balls with three 4s and brace of 6s, providing Sri Lanka a flying start of 66 runs in seven overs with fellow opener Mahela Udawatte, who smashed three boundaries and one six his 19 ball knock of 25. Pakistan pace trio of Shoaib Akhtar, Sohail Tanvir and Umar Gul made a disappointing start with their wayward bowling. Akhtar was smashed for boundary by Jayasuriya and then pulled him for two back to back sixes into the mid wicket stand Gul conceded 17 in his first over. Shahid Afridi and Shoaib Malik put Pakistan back into the game with three quick wickets. Udawatte beaten in the flight by Afridi and was caught by Shoaib Akhtar at long-off. Malik then bowled Jayasuriya round his legs and picked up the all important wicket of Jayewardene for five. Lankans were slightly under pressure at 94-4 in 14th over. Though Gul clean bowled Weeraretne for 12 with two boundaries to make it 115-5. But Kapugedera made steady undefeated 17 to steer his team to their first triumph against Pakistan in twenty20 international. It was a sweet revenge for the Lankans in front of estimated crowed of 10,000 after they lost their league round match to Pakistan two-days ago due to heroics from skipper Shoaib Malik and Fawad Alam. But this time Pakistan failed to repeat their magic with the return of Captain Mahela Jayawardene and Mendis. CEO of Al-Barakah Imran Khan and Pakistan High Commissioner in Canada Moosa Chohan presented the glittering golden trophy to Sri Lankan Captain Jayawardene with cash prize of Canadian$60,000 while Shoaib Malik collected C$30,000. Man of the final Jayasuriya got the brand new Ford Focus Car key from Zakir Bhay. Man of the series Ajantha Mendis got apartment key in Ajman. Earlier southpaw opener Salman Butt held Pakistan innings together with an enterprising 44 off 41 balls laced with four boundaries and one six. Ajantha Mendis caused the trouble in Pakistan batting ranks With three wickets to end the event with 11 scalps to his credit in the competition.