Profile
Ajantha Mendis poses the same problem as Sachin Tendulkar for the broadcasters, one does not know what to term him as, an off-spinner, a leg-spinner or a medium pacer! Mendis bowls a nice little assortment of off-spinners, leg-spinners, googlies, wrong-uns, medium pacers and so on. In his first two years in the first class cricket, he had a jaw-dropping record. In less than 20 first class matches, he had picked up more than 110 wickets at an unheard of average of about 14! In the List A matches in the same period, he went one better, and took 40 wickets at an average of 12. This led to his selection into the Sri Lankan ODI team, and he soon made his debut against the West Indies. With his bag of tricks out in the open, batsmen found it impossible to pick him; Ramnaresh Sarwan almost falling over again and again, but not able to score too many off him. He bowled his 10 overs for only 39 runs, and took three wickets. Looking at him bowl many consider him to be an ideal replacement for Muralidaran.He also played in the first season of the IPL as a late addition for the Kolkata Knight Riders.
Statistics
Show:
| |
Matches |
Innings |
Runs |
NO |
Avg. |
SR |
100's |
50's |
| Test |
9 |
9 |
31 |
3 |
5.17 |
56.36 |
0 |
0 |
| ODI |
36 |
18 |
81 |
8 |
8.1 |
68.64 |
0 |
0 |
| T20 |
12 |
2 |
4 |
2 |
0 |
200 |
0 |
0 |
| |
Matches |
Innings |
Balls |
Runs |
Wickets |
BBI |
BBM |
Avg. |
Econ. |
4w |
5w |
10w |
Extras |
| Test |
9 |
16 |
2358 |
1136 |
42 |
6/117 |
/ |
27.05 |
2.89 |
4 |
2 |
1 |
23 |
| ODI |
36 |
35 |
1683 |
1162 |
71 |
6/13 |
/ |
16.37 |
4.15 |
3 |
3 |
0 |
33 |
| T20 |
12 |
12 |
276 |
244 |
25 |
4/15 |
/ |
9.76 |
5.3 |
2 |
0 |
0 |
6 |
| |
Catches |
Stumpings |
Runouts |
| Test |
1 |
0 |
0 |
| ODI |
5 |
0 |
0 |
| T20 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
Career
Span:
- Test:
- 2008-2009
- ODI:
- 2008-2009
- T20:
- 2008-2009
- Test
-
- Debut:
- Sri Lanka Vs India at Sinhalese Sports Club Ground, Colombo - Jul 23, 2008
- Last played:
- Sri Lanka Vs New Zealand at Galle International Stadium, Galle - Aug 18, 2009
- ODI
-
- Debut:
- Sri Lanka Vs West Indies at Queen's Park Oval, Port of Spain - Trinidad - Apr 10, 2008
- Last played:
- Sri Lanka Vs New Zealand at New Wanderers Stadium, Johannesburg - Sep 27, 2009
- T20
-
- Debut:
- Sri Lanka Vs Zimbabwe at Maple Leaf (North-West Ground), King City, Ontario - Oct 10, 2008
- Last played:
- Sri Lanka Vs New Zealand at R.Premadasa Stadium (Khettarama), Colombo - Sep 04, 2009
