Mendis remains a mystery

Sri Lanka v India, 1st ODI, Dambulla

Mendis remains a mystery

August 18, 2008

	Mahendra Singh Dhoni said after the Asia Cup that Ajantha Mendis couldn't be read. Nothing's changed since then © AFP

The crisp, cream clothing made way for dazzling blue, but the script read much the same. Watching India clearly weighed down by the finger freak waiting in the wings, unsure about how to tackle tidy medium-pace, anxious about what could be unleashed at any moment, it was hard not to get a sense of déjà vu. The Test specialists were gone, but the one-day recruits suffered a similar fate.

India's latest defeat against Sri Lanka wasn't all about Ajantha Mendis, though at the rate he is picking up awards and cheques, he's certain to be a richer man and teach Arun Lal, the post-match emcee all tour, a fair amount of Sinhalese. Mendis played a key role, but India were severely dented after Sri Lanka's new-ball duo nipped out three early wickets.

That pair took much of the pressure off Mendis and Muttiah Muralitharan. Chaminda Vaas breached Gautam Gambhir's defence with the second ball of the match and Nuwan Kulasekera bowled very well, complementing his partner, to take two wickets. After five overs India were 9 for 1; after ten 29 for 2; after 15, 42 for 3; after the Powerplays they were reeling at 73 for 4. Therein lies the command that Sri Lanka took over the opposition. Vaas and Kulasekera choked the top order and Thilan Thushara, bowling tidy left-arm seam, maintained the pressure. It was a clinical example of attacking through partnerships.

More importantly, it was the perfect setting for Mendis to come in for the last over of the Powerplays. India were unsettled by their early losses and apprehensive about Mendis' arrival. They were unsure about how to handle the situation, and it proved detrimental.

When Mendis did arrive, India's batsmen looked no closer to deciphering him. His first strike hurt so deep that India failed to recover. Yuvraj Singh was beaten first ball by a slider, survived an extremely tight lbw shout, tried to dictate terms with a six over long-on, and was then utterly befuddled by a quicker one that skidded on. Too far forward, Yuvraj was left looking silly. India's most experienced player had fallen for the dangling carrot, and the reverberations were loud.

Thereon it was much the same as in the Tests. Mendis left the rest to fumble about in the dark. Mahendra Singh Dhoni fidgeted and fussed about his crease, playing and missing until he was put out of his misery by an outside-edge that flew to slip. Runs dried up. The heat turned up. After the Asia Cup, Dhoni said Mendis just couldn't be read at all; nothing has changed.

	India's players have bounced between analysing footage, hoping that his aura may wear off and stressing on reading him off the pitch. What they need to understand is that for the time being Mendis is beyond understanding. Hard as it may sound, they need to take him out of the equation, stop worrying about him

Again bowling accurately and lethally, Mendis finished with 3 for 21 off nine overs, helping reduce India to 87 for 7 after which he was taken out of the attack. All Murali had to do was twirl his wrist and gobble up the lower order, even if his last over went for 14. The problem with India's approach against Mendis was that everyone wanted to build, nobody wanted to do maintenance.

"Creativity is not like a freight train going down the tracks," wrote Bob Dylan in his autobiography, Chronicles. "It's something that has to be caressed and treated with a great deal of respect. If your mind is intellectually in the way, it will stop you. You've got to programme your brain not to think too much."

Flip that around and you understand India's predicament against Mendis. They've been bamboozled, nay awed, by Mendis' bag of tricks since he destroyed them in Karachi. Mendis is special, no doubt about it. India's players have bounced between analysing footage, hoping that his aura may wear off and stressing on reading him off the pitch. What they need to understand is that for the time being Mendis is beyond understanding. Hard as it may sound, they need to take him out of the equation, stop worrying about him.

Virender Sehwag didn't think too much about Mendis in Galle and finished the match with 251 runs. There's a possibility he may be out of the whole series, and that's a massive worry, for in a sense India lost this match before Dhoni went out for the toss. They lost this match some time during training yesterday when Sehwag injured himself. Sehwag was India's highest scorer in the Test series, handling Mendis with aplomb during his double hundred in Galle, and their best bet at providing a solid start.

Dhoni spoke of the added responsibility on Sehwag to pass on advice to India's one-day recruits. In terms of his experience against Sri Lanka's spinners and his ability to provide starts, an integral asset in cricket, Sehwag's loss was brutal. In his last ODI he hammered an exhilarating 60 from just 35 balls, helping India storm to 76 from just nine overs.

Without their best player, India's indecision crept in from the onset. The openers may have thought attacking Sri Lanka's medium-pacers was the best option given their inefficiency in the Tests. That didn't work, and they had no answer to Mendis.

Even if they do a half-baked job of something, India's batsmen will find themselves one-eyed men in the kingdom of the blind. But at the moment they remain indecisive about picking one approach; it's a toss-up between throwing in the towel or trying to force the pace against spin. India need to find a way to rotate singles, as well as score runs.

"Its important to learn," said Dhoni, "because everyone makes mistakes. Unless you learn from those your own, your team's graph won't go up."

There's only a day's gap for the second match. India's time starts now.

Sehwag ruled out of ODI series

India in Sri Lanka 2008

Sehwag ruled out of ODI series

August 18, 2008

Virender Sehwag has been ruled out of the remaining four one-day internationals against Sri Lanka due to an ankle injury. He had twisted his left ankle during practice on Sunday and played no part in the first ODI at the Rangiri Dambulla International Stadium on Monday which India lost by eight wickets.

One of India's in-form batsmen, he scored 344 runs in the Test series earlier, the highest by any batsman on either side. Along with Gautam Gambhir, he was one of the few Indian batsmen who looked assured against Sri Lanka's spin duo of Muttiah Muralitharan and Ajantha Mendis.

Mahendra Singh Dhoni, the Indian captain, said the team would miss Sehwag. "He was a batsman in top form. But that's the way it goes in cricket. You can't really stop and think about the guys you will be missing in the series. Rather than that you will have to fill in that space. Because that is the only way your team can win.

"We may look at a different combination of openers for the next game but it's at a very initial stage. We have just gone through the first game so whatever fits the team best we'll decide on that," he said.

Team manager Sanjay Desai, however, did not confirm whether a replacement would be flown to Sri Lanka.

India are already without Sachin Tendulkar, who withdrew from the ODI series after sustaining an elbow injury during the final Test in Colombo.

Mendis not a permanent threat - Dhoni

Sri Lanka v India, 1st ODI, Dambulla

Mendis not a permanent threat - Dhoni

August 18, 2008

	Mahendra Singh Dhoni was among Ajantha Mendis' three victims © AFP

Mahendra Singh Dhoni, the Indian captain, has said that Ajantha Mendis was an unusual bowler in comparison to Muttiah Muralitharan, but it's only a matter of time before batsmen are able to pick his variations easily. Mendis continued to trouble the Indians after picking up 3 for 21 off nine overs in Sri Lanka's easy eight-wicket win in the first one-dayer in Dambulla. Muralitharan too chipped in with three wickets to skittle India out for a paltry 146.

"With time batsmen will get used to playing him. Even Murali some seven-eight years back was really difficult," Dhoni said. "Everybody was talking about him. With time I think it will get a bit easier. Mendis is a bit more unusual than Murali. I have not seen any bowler like this.

"Mendis is difficult to pick because he is a very different bowler. Even if you pick him up, by the time you realise what the ball is it gets very late to play a big shot. But it is not only about playing. You have to rotate the strike because you don't want a bowler to end up ten overs for 20 runs.

"But if you see the way he has played the two games against us, even in the Asia Cup, he gave away just ten runs in six or eight overs. You need to take a few from him and a few from Murali and look to attack the others. You've got to have something on the board."

Dhoni emphasised that a good start was essential for his side to get to a substantial total. "We were off to a good start in the Asia Cup but then we lost quick wickets," Dhoni said. "After that when you are playing Mendis it's difficult. It gets a bit tough when you have to rotate the strike and also save the wicket if the bowler is as unusual as Mendis.

"Once you get used to the variations then it gets easy for the batsmen. The only option right now is to play more and more of him and that's the only way of getting better. You can see a thousand videos but it doesn't matter until you go out there and play him off the track from 20 yards."

Dhoni's counterpart Mahela Jayawardene, however warned his side of a backlash similar to that of India's victory in the second Test in Galle after a heavy innings defeat in Colombo.

"Definitely, they will come back strongly. They have a very good side and they have a lot of talented individual players who can change the match for them," Jayawardene said. "So we will make sure we will play the same brand of cricket that we played today."

Jayawardene said the absence of Virender Sehwag for the remainder of the series with a twisted ankle will hurt India. Sehwag was India's leading run-scorer in the Tests with 344 runs and his double-hundred shaped the victory in Galle.

"Virender is a big-game player. It's important for them to have him. But we are playing against India and not against individuals. That's what we did in the Test matches as well. He can come and do his job but our task is to make sure it won't happen."

Jayawardene, who scored an unbeaten 61 off 82 balls, said it was important he was able to finish the game off. "We knew it was going to be tough, the Indian fast bowlers came strongly and bowled at the good areas. When I was batting with Kumar [Sangakkara], I said 'let's bat the 15-20 overs, that's crucial.' Unfortunately, Kumar got out but I thought Chamara Kapugedera batted really well. So we need to keep this momentum going. It's important that we consistently put partnerships and score runs. That's where the difference would be."

Remorseless Sri Lanka thrash India

Sri Lanka v India, 1st ODI, Dambulla

Remorseless Sri Lanka thrash India

August 18, 2008

Sri Lanka 147 for 2 (Mahela 61*, Kapugedera 45) beat India 146 (Mendis 3-21, Murali 3-37) by eight wickets
Scorecard and ball-by-ball details
How they were out

	Yuvraj Singh was one of Ajantha Mendis' three victims as the Indians yet again failed to counter him © AFP

The actors were different from the Test series but the script remained the same. India were injected with fresh blood but couldn't escape the slow poison of M&M. Chaminda Vaas and Nuwan Kulasekara did the initial work before Ajantha Mendis and Muttiah Muralitharan blew away the rest to bowl out India for 146. Without having to contend with the pressure of a high asking rate, a serene Mahela Jayawardene weathered the minor hiccup of the loss of the openers and steered his side home in the company of Chamara Kapugedera.

You couldn't escape the sense of deja-vu. Having lost the toss, Jayawardene delayed the introduction of the spinners till the 20th over, but when Mendis finally appeared, it was evident his spell over the batsmen remained unbroken.

India's plight was best exemplified by the dismissal of Yuvraj Singh. He had struggled against the seamers, surviving a dropped chance at five against Kulasekara, before Mendis swallowed him in a spectacular first over. It was quite a sight. The first ball hastened past a mystified Yuvraj, the second-ball skidder fetched a plausible appeal for lbw, and the third saw a desperate counterattack clear the field and the boundary. The fourth was the carrom ball; thinking it would spin away, Yuvraj pushed his bat well outside the line but the ball straightened to sound the death knell.

And Mendis dealt the killer blow almost immediately when he drew Mahendra Singh Dhoni into edging his legbreak to slip. The tailenders resisted briefly but India folded up for a measly score. It was the culmination of the good start provided by the seamers. Aided by the seam movement on a two-paced track - grassy areas punctuated by patches of dry areas - both new-ball bowlers kept it simple: Vaas interspersed his angling full-length deliveries with ones that straightened while Kulasekara troubled the batsmen with his incutters to the right-hand batsmen.

Vaas, overshadowed by Mendis and Murali during the Test series, reminded India just why he is the highest wicket-taker in India-Sri Lanka ODI encounters by breaching the defences of the in-form Gautam Gambhir with the second ball of the match. Kumar Sangakkara stood up to the stumps right away to prevent Gambhir's usual walk down the track and Gambhir drove completely outside the line.

Smart Stats Sri Lanka's eight-wicket win is their fourth in succession in Dambulla against India, who have never beaten the home team here. India's 146 is their lowest ODI score in a 50-over game against Sri Lanka in Sri Lanka. In 24 ODIs in Dambulla, the team batting first has on 12 occasions failed to get to 200. Gautam Gambhir's wicket was Chaminda Vaas' 399th in ODIs, putting him just one short of joining Wasim Akram, Muralitharan and Waqar Younis in the 400-wicket club. Murali's 3 for 37 improves his record in Dambulla to 32 wickets in 13 ODIs at an average of 13.25 and an economy rate of 3.32. The extent of Sri Lanka's dominance can be gauged from the fact that in the first 15 overs of India's innings, they were forced to play out 69 dot balls, which is 11.5 overs. Over the entire innings India couldn't score from 204 out of 276 deliveries.

One by one, they stumbled. Suresh Raina never looked in, constantly flirting outside off, eventually succumbing to his urge to drive on the up. The debutant Virat Kohli, replacing Virender Sehwag who'd twisted his ankle in practice, was no better. He was unsure of whether to go forward or back during his stay and was caught dead in front by an incutter from Kulasekara.

Kulasekara should have got the next man, Yuvraj but Jayawardene fluffed a regulation chance at second slip. Yuvraj's start was typical: the bat was tentatively pushed away from the body a few times before he broke free with a well-timed clip through the on side. Emboldened, he went for the on-the-up flash and the resultant edge should have terminated his stay. After that, though he never looked completely at ease, he started to play close to the body. That was until Mendis arrived.

Rohit started cautiously, opening the bat face to pinch singles, before he suddenly, and against the run of play, walked down the wicket and swung a short-of-a-length delivery from Vaas over deep midwicket in the 16th over. However, immediately after Mendis sent Yuvraj packing, Rohit steered a delivery slanted across him straight to the solitary wide slip and India continued to free fall.

Sri Lanka, too, wobbled initially in the run chase against some disciplined bowling from Munaf Patel - who prised out the openers - and Zaheer Khan. On a day when the Indian batsmen were shamed, their bowlers provided brief moments of consolation. After six overs of stalemate, Sanath Jayasuriya lost his patience. He skipped down the track but skied the lofted carve to mid-on. Sangakkara, too, fell to the urge to dominate, getting a leading edge from an attempted whip across the line.

However, Jayawardene took charge, looking good from the go. He creamed the seamers through the covers, a gorgeous on-the-up off drive off Munaf in the 17th over being the highlight. Dhoni introduced spin in the 23rd over but even he would have known that neither Harbhajan Singh nor Pragyan Ojha could have produced any miracles. The target was simply not enough on this track.

Munaf was the best Indian bowler on the view. He repeatedly whipped the ball down from a loose-limbed action and got the ball to either cut back in or shape away from the off stump. He might have even bowled the best ball of the day by a medium-pacer when he got one to seam away late past Jayawardene's bat but, as in the Tests, the Indian batsmen hardly gave the bowlers any cover to fire. The Sri Lankan summer of mystery continues to taunt and tease the Indians.