Ajantha Mendis - Bowling Style

Bowling Style

The veteran West Indies cricket writer Tony Becca wrote in the Jamaica Gleaner: "Mendis bowls everything. With a smile on his face as he caresses the ball before delivering it, he bowls the offbreak, he bowls the legbreak, he bowls the googly, he bowls the flipper, he bowls a straight delivery, he bowls them with different grips and different actions, he bowls them with a different trajectory and at a different pace, and he disguises them brilliantly. The result is that he mesmerises, or bamboozles, batsmen.

Jerome Jayaratne, the Sri Lanka Cricket Academy coach, said: "Mendis is unusual, freaky and has developed a ball which he releases with a snap of his fingers (carrom ball), which is very unusual compared to other orthodox spin bowlers." That ball is reminiscent of the former Australia spinner Johnny Gleeson, who had a similar delivery.

Although the ball can be made to either turn away or into a right-handed batsman, Mendis uses it to turn away from a right-handed batsman, in order to contrast it with his off-breaks and googlies. The Australian Test cricketer and coach Peter Philpott actually predicted the rise of a bowler such as Mendis in a book written in 1973.

"...Eventually I see the Iverson method being best employed by an orthodox off-spinner. Instead of a basic Iverson attack with occasional orthodox off-spin, there is a great future for an accurate off-spinner who produces a difficult to detect leg spinner every now and then. I could visualise such a bowler causing great concern amongst batsmen, and young off-spinners might be well rewarded for experimentation in this field..."