Before Kamindu Mendis, there was Pradeep Mathew. The left-arm wrist spinner had more variations than any bowler ever had. The flipper, the darter, the skidder, the floater, the infamous double bounce ball that spun one way and then the other. Had his career fully bloomed, he could have been a bigger match-winner than Muttiah Muralitharan, “or the second behind him.” Except, of course, that Pradeep Mathew is a fictitious character in Shehan Karunatilaka’s tour de force novel Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew.
The closest a Sri Lanka cricketer has come to the imaginary Mathew is Kamindu. He bowls left-arm orthodox spin to right-handed batsmen; at the sight of left-handers, he switches to right-arm off-spin. But he has one far more precious gift that Mathew did not have. The gift to bat, and bat better than most in the world. He has time and touch, grace and grandeur, was the third fastest ever to 1,000 runs in Test cricket; averages an unearthly 62.66, makes more than 50 runs in every two-and-a-half innings. In times of flux—seemingly eternal — he is the compass that’s guiding Sri Lanka through the rough seas.
Not just a novelty
Life has changed for him. He is no longer an object of curiosity. He is no longer merely an ambidextrous wonder, but a high-class batsman. He always was, but just that he was trapped in perceptions. The hype seized the selectors when they chose the squad for the Under-19 World Cup in Bangladesh.
Remembers Ranjan Paranavithana, former cricketer and junior selector: “There were better batsmen than him, but we picked him for his unique skills, because he could bowl with both his arms, and bowled well, even though I would say he was a slightly better with his left arm. His batting was good, but not as good as it is now.”
Even during club games, curious spectators gathered around the ground to watch the craft of Mendis unfold. He shared the surname with mystery’s dreamchild, Ajantha. He is from the south coast town of Boossa, which had a notorious detention centre in the peak of the country’s domestic insurgency, only four kilometres from Lasith Malinga’s home in Rathgama. An aura emerged even before he turned an adult.
He left batsmen shocked, when he changed hands depending on the batsman. Left-arm orthodox spin to right handers. Off-breaks to left-handers. His left-arm orthodox turned; his off-breaks skidded on. He turned heads in the Under-19 World Cup in Dhaka, where he picked five wickets at an average of 20, but could muster only 156 runs at 26. He, though, was insistently pestered about his ambidextrousness.
Mendis would patiently offer them the origin story: “I think you are born with this talent because when I was in school I practised with both hands. When I was 15 the coach told me to try with both arms so I did.” Dhanushka Denagama, a local coach, initiated it, before Dhammika Sudarshana nurtured and refined it at the Richmond College in Galle. He was good enough to snare four wickets on his Under-17 debut as well. But he always insisted that he was a batting all-rounder. In the World Cup, he was jokingly asked if he could bat with both hands too. He demurred. “No I can’t bat with both hands, but I can reverse sweep,” he would reply.
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But the attention — and at times obsession — overshadowed his batting, which to many was his biggest strength. His Under-19 coach and former captain Roy Dias told the SLC website: “What impressed me more than his bowling was his technique, how easy he looked when playing his strokes and the time he had. He was immensely hardworking too. He had the qualities to be a great batsman.”
Bowling shelved
The bowling gradually took a backseat. An injury to the left-arm too played its part, and when he landed in New Zealand for the 2018 junior World Cup as the captain, he was more of a batsman, says Paranavitana. “He had developed more strokes and looked quite compact and organised. He was getting lot of runs in the domestic circuit too,” he says.
It became a pattern of his international career. He does turn his arms over, but occasionally. He bowled 540 balls in 63 international games has eked out only 12 wickets. In the same span, he has stroked 2,223 runs, a half of those runs accrued in Tests. White-ball fortunes have been harsher — he aggregates 27.29 in ODIs and 21.09 in T20Is. It’s an irony, a uniquely multi-skilled cricketer touted to be a red-hot property in the shorter forms has cracked the longest format first. And that his first taste of international cricket was a T20 fixture against England in 2018.
He is well-schooled in the T20 medium too. “He has become a 360-degree batsman and can play any stroke in the modern game. I would attribute this to his hardworking nature,” Paranavitana says.
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He has new-age strokes like the ramp and upper cut, besides the more conventional ones, the pulls, sweeps and slogs. It could be that he bats too low down the order to soak in a few balls before he could ratchet up the strike rate. Of his 23 outings, 16 were slotted at No.4 or below. The few instances he had the cushion of time, he cashed in. Like a 39-ball 65 not out. On a sluggish track, he soaked 15 balls for his first 18 runs, before cutting loose. Forty seven runs came off his last 25 balls, most of the death-over flourish coming via neat paddle sweeps and devilish scoops.
More evidence of him grooving to T20 beats came in the series against Zimbabwe, when he struck 41 not out from 16 balls to wrap up a chase that was floundering at one stage. “You see the maturity that comes with experience and confidence, he knows what he has to do in those situations. He is not scared, and he will become a bigger force in T20 in the coming years. See how Pathum Nissanka is coming good in all formats now,” Paranavitana observes.
He has a patient and understanding coach in Sanath Jayasuriya too. “Kamindu has a simple game plan. When you plan things out, it gets easier and he is a free flowing cricketer. He is very mature and knows his strengths and weaknesses. He is not the finished product yet, but he is a classy player. If you see his wagon wheel, he hits all-round the wicket. He drives, cuts, pulls, works the singles and rotates the strike,” he recently said.
He bowls often in T20Is too. The format suits his gifts, as even experienced batsmen take time to get used to his shuffling hands. This Asia Cup is another opportunity to show his T20-readiness. He might not be the greatest Sri Lankan cricketer, real or imagined, since Pradeep Mathews. But he does possess more skills than most — bowl with both arms and bats better than most in the world.
