Picking the bowlers was much harder than picking the batsmen and all-rounders. We’re not going to pretend that we’re 100% happy with what we’ve come up with because that would be dishonest and we save the dishonesty for getting out of social events. Dale Steyn, South Africa, age 26 We’ve
Continue readingTag: Ajantha Mendis
India change their batting faces to no great effect
‘Bye bye Sachin, Rahul, Sourav and VVS, the new generation are here now. You guys are past it, but we’ll conquer Ajantha Mendis and Muttiah Muralitharan with ease.’ This is what India’s glittery one-day batting line-up might have said, but it would have been followed by a bit of a
Continue readingAjantha Mendis to make his Test debut
Let’s close our eyes to England’s filthy performance and instead imagine we’re in Sri Lanka. The sun is shining, monkeys are rife, you’re having string hoppers for breakfast and Sri Lanka are playing India in Colombo. They’ll already have started by now and Ajantha Mendis should be playing. Unfortunately, Lasith
Continue readingAjantha Mendis sorts everything out
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
Continue readingThe carrom ball
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
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