Chennai: Kamindu Mendis has a lot of admirers in Sri Lankan cricket. He holds the record of being the first player to hit 50-plus scores in each of his first eight Test matches. At that stage he had an average of 91.27, which was second only to Donald Bradman.
That record, however, didn’t exactly set the stage on fire when the IPL auctions came about, with the 26-year-old being acquired by Sunrisers Hyderabad for Rs 75 lakh. And it wasn’t necessarily only his batting that SRH were banking on. It was the ability to bowl spin with both hands.
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On Friday at the MA Chidambaram Stadium, all of Kamindu’s skills were on display as SRH managed to keep their qualification hopes alive. But what caught the world’s attention first up wasn’t his bowling or batting — it was a stunning catch that he pulled off to dismiss a dangerous Dewald Brevis at long-on.
Kamindu, reacting to a fierce shot, moved 11.09 metres to his left and threw himself in the air to complete the stunner, arguably the best in the IPL so far. The catch took the wind out of CSK’s sails. Ian Bishop, in the comm box, couldn’t quite figure out which was Kamindu’s stronger side, the right or the left.
SRH coach Daniel Vettori felt that it was a catch that even a brilliant fielder takes “only once or twice in his career”.
“It’s just instinct, an innate ability to be able to move. To see the ball and time your dive, it was brilliant,” the coach said. While the catch was the moment of the day, the first two overs that Kamindu bowled — a mixture of left-arm finger spin and right-arm off break — went for only six runs and resulted in the wicket of Ravindra Jadeja.
He was taken apart for 20 runs by Brevis in his third, but the Lankan came back to take the stunning catch the very next over.
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Vettori, himself a fabulous left-arm spinner in his playing days, was really happy to see Kamindu dismiss Jadeja with his off-break. “I didn’t quite appreciate how good his bowling was with both arms, and his ability to go back and forward and control his pace. Even the way he changes his pace is a real skill,” Vettori said.
Kamindu’s job wasn’t yet over. During SRH’s chase, he was called into action at 90/4, with 65 more to get. The 26-year-old Lankan showed his maturity and ability to play spin — using the sweep and reverse sweep against Noor Ahmad and Ravindra Jadeja — to snuff out CSK’s last hopes. His 32 not out off 22 balls got the job done nicely.
