Sanath Jayasuriya might have pummelled a trademark hundred, but Ajantha Mendis won Sri Lanka the Asia Cup.

If you want to see some impressive bowling figures, read on: 6-13 off eight overs. Virender Sehwag had hit a 26-ball fifty when Mendis came on to bowl, so the young spinner basically just flat-out won the match.

Having one baffling, unconventional, once-in-a-generation spinner would be enough for most nations, but not Sri Lanka. They have to have two. Greedy swines.

Ajantha Mendis bowls ’spin’. He’s not bound by petty distinctions like that between off-spin and leg-spin. He bowls everything.

He bowls everything and then has the face-slapping audacity to add another delivery - the carrom ball.

Tags: Ajantha Mendis, India, Sri Lanka by King Cricket
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Ajantha Mendis’s ‘carrom ball’ does look to be pretty much a new delivery. Inventing a new delivery is a pretty brash thing to do. It’s almost like discovering a new colour or introducing a new letter into the alphabet. We should have all the deliveries already - cricket’s been around for bloody ages.

Doubtless people have done similar things before now, but perhaps not in exactly the same way and certainly not to the extent that the delivery’s been branded, as the carrom ball has. Maybe previous trailblazers just didn’t have a good name. You’ve got to have a name.

You can probably get a decent idea of what he does from the picture on the right.

His middle finger is bent down along the side of the ball. When he releases it, he flicks that finger, spinning the ball in the same direction as a leg-break.

He seems to have good control over where it lands as well, which is pretty astonishing. It might just get him the odd wicket, you know.

The name derives from the Indian table-top game ‘carrom’ where you use a similar flicking technique.

Tags: Ajantha Mendis, Sri Lanka by King Cricket
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Tell you what we like in cricket: we like people who made their names doing one spectactular thing in particular to do exactly that thing only at a slightly advanced age.

For example, you might say to a cricketing newcomer: “This is Sanath Jayasuriya. He’s famous for scoring runs ludicrously quickly at the start of one-day matches. He probably won’t do it now though, because he’s getting on a bit.”

But he does do it! Things are exactly the same!

No player deteriorates. Everything is exactly the same. The old, balding master is still infinitely more masterful than the trendy young kids.

Okay, so Benevolent Uncle Sanath’s 55-ball hundred was against Bangladesh, but we can go a bit overboard because it was his birthday (39) and he did carve up the IPL as well, don’t forget.

Tags: Sanath Jayasuriya, Sri Lanka by King Cricket
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This week’s Old Trafford Test was the last there until at least 2012. Putting aside our irritation that we can’t see Test cricket at our local ground, we can see that it’s increasingly shabby and that Lancashire have been complacent about their ‘right’ to hold Tests.

Only that’s not necessarily the reason. According to Lancashire’s chief executive, Jim Cumbes, the criteria through which grounds are selected to host Tests are heavily weighted towards financial returns. This isn’t good for spectators.

The various potential Test match venues bid against each other and the more they bid, the more they need to recoup. We’re no economist, but the ‘how much could I get for a kidney’ ticket and beer prices might well be a result of this.

Old Trafford still needs a lick of paint though.

Tags: England, Sri Lanka by King Cricket
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This was the perfect example of how great batsmen play the situation. Shivnarine Chanderpaul’s an obdurate Test batsman. He hangs around for hours. In one-day cricket, he’s a different beast. He’s A BEAST OF WRATH. Controlled wrath, but wrath nonetheless.

The West Indies needed ten to win off the last two balls against Sri Lanka yesterday. It didn’t matter that they were nine wickets down, both balls had to exit the field of play. Shiv hit a four and then calmly volleyed a six. Job done.

You don’t get the coveted Lord Megachief of Gold title without being half decent, but Shivnarine Chanderpaul’s continuing to justify his selection.

Chamara Kapugedera had earlier hit a rescue act 95 after Sri Lanka had been 49-5. Kapugedera’s played a few matches, but this is one of the first signs that it might be worth learning his name. Maybe one day ‘Chamara Kapugedera’ will trip off the tongue as easily as ‘Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Lord Megachief of Gold’.

Tags: Chamara Kapugedera, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Sri Lanka, West Indies by King Cricket
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Burns in, takes 3-18, tricks you into thinking he’s finally arrived as a fast bowler, then takes 0-32 in his next spell and finally ends up with those same three wickets for about 120.

Stupid, round-armed short-arse.

Tillakaratne Dilshan’s saving Sri Lanka with 58 not out off 57 balls. We can’t quite believe that he’s 31 and we can’t quite believe that he’s averaging 37 in Tests. We thought both figures were lower. Another mindless, autopilot article about young players finally coming good goes begging.

Once upon a time, we weren’t bound by ‘facts’ and wrote what we felt like.

Tags: Fidel Edwards, Sri Lanka, Tillakaratne Dilshan, West Indies by King Cricket
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Malinda Warnapura was out first ball on his debut against Bangladesh, but he’s avoided following in Marvan Atapattu’s footsteps since then.

Atapattu benefitted from a good deal of generosity from the Sri Lankan selectors at the start of his career. His first few innings read as follows: 0, 0, 0, 1, 0 and 0. Even then he hardly set the world alight, continuing with: 25, 22, 0, 25, 14, 4, 7, 10, 26, 19 and 29, before finally breaking 30 in an innings of 108 against India in his 18th Test knock.

Malinda Warnapura shrugged off his ignominious debut to hit 82 in his second Test, thus avoiding the nickname ‘Atapatthree’ that we’ve just thought of and will have to file away until someone actually does make a dreadful start to their Test batting career. This week, against the West Indies, Warnapura continued with the run-scoring, hitting 120 and 62.

He seems like he’s all right against pace and he can’t be too bad against spin being as he scored successive hundreds when Sri Lanka A participated in the Duleep trophy - in much the same way as the England Lions batsmen didn’t, earlier this year. He managed to slip in 243 against Bangladesh A as well, not long after. Add to that a few years playing for Mirfield in the Central Yorkshire Cricket League and you’ve got quite a rounded batsman - and not in a Jesse Ryder way.

Sri Lanka won the Test. Chaminda Vaas took five wickets. Good (increasingly) old Chaminda Vaas.

Tags: Malinda Warnapura, Marvan Atapattu, Sri Lanka, West Indies by King Cricket
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We’ve had a computer that hated the internet FOR ALL IT WAS WORTH for the last two days, so we’re a bit behind. We’re going to try and catch up, so brace yourselves for some three sentence updates that completely miss the point of what’s been going on.

Yuvraj Singh actually scored some runs in Australia was one thing that happened. He didn’t score them against Australia, but still - it’s a start. Yuvraj Singh has shamed us with his front-footed incompetence this tour and we’re not going to forgive him for ages.

Having now forgiven Yuvraj Singh, we henceforth urge him to take a leaf out of Kumar Sangakkara’s book. Now there’s a man who can score runs in Australia. There’s a man who does little else.

To return to the subject of the first paragraph, can anyone think of a suitable award for the top-level human who fixed our computer after hearing about 15 words of our description as to what was happening? This was after Major Corporation One had used three employees and five hours to tell us to take it down to Major Corporation Two and after Major Corporation Two had taken an hour or more to tell us it was ‘either a software or a hardware issue’.

We’re thinking of getting him a King of Morocco. They’re still available, right? That or a huge pair of hands clad in diamonds doing the ‘thumbs up’ gesture. Yes. That’s what we’ll get him, unless any of you have got a better suggestion.

Tags: India, Sri Lanka, Yuvraj Singh by King Cricket
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It would be tempting to look on this as Adam Gilchrist’s final international hundred, but the interminable Commonwealth Bank Series is going to provide him with a few more opportunities yet.

Australia have played Sri Lanka twice and beaten them twice now, but they still get to play two more matches against them and two more against India before the best of three finals. After that, we’ll DEFINITELY know which the best team is. Or not - England (clearly the worst team of the three) won it last year after Australia and New Zealand got bored and dozed off.

Also in this match, Lasith Malinga took some wickets and Kumar Sangakkara showed that he still loves batting against Australia unlike any of his team mates.

We’re going away for the weekend. That’s why we’ve slipped into perfunctory mode.

Tags: Adam Gilchrist, Australia, Sri Lanka by King Cricket
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Sickeningly wrong-handed purveyor of off-cutters, Nathan Bracken, has once again ended a one-day international with disgustingly flattering figures. Bracken took 5-46 as Sri Lanka were bowled out for just 125, chasing Australia’s 253.

We’ve long since accepted that Nathan Bracken is a more-than-useful one-day bowler, but we don’t have to bloody well like it. It’s not even his hair, it’s how well-disguised his wiliness is. He may well be a smart bowler, but it’s masked by a veneer of innocuosity and gorm.

Tags: Australia, Sri Lanka by King Cricket
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