Kusal Mendis – an enigma turned match-winner

Kusal Mendis

• “I am happy the way Kusal is playing. We have brought him to this level by clearing his head and giving him the confidence” – Head Coach Jayasuriya

By Sa’adi Thawfeeq

There was a time that Kusal Mendis with all his extraordinary batting talents failed to live up to expectations. Consistency was lacking in his batting and his constant failures to convert fifties into hundreds made him an enigma for the team, the coaches and the selectors.

His career average of 36 in Tests, 34 in ODIs and 25 in T20Is was not a true reflection of his talents and what he could deliver.

Added to that, the burden of ODI Captaincy trusted upon him midway during the 2023 Cricket World Cup in India saw his form go down. He scored 76 and 122 in his first two World Cup innings, but only 96 in seven innings after that.

“When I was made Captain, I do think the pressure might have gotten to me because I am human,” Mendis once said in an interview. “I wasn’t expecting to get the captaincy, so when you look at my game after that, I felt that I couldn’t play in the same manner as the earlier games.”

The Upul Tharanga led selection committee that had appointed Mendis as ODI Captain in December 2023 opted to go in a different direction when they handed it to Charith Asalanka seven months later. It was not that Sri Lanka had performed badly under Mendis. They won six of the eight completed ODIs under his leadership that included five consecutive home match wins against Afghanistan and Zimbabwe and a 2-1 loss away to Bangladesh.

Relieving Mendis from the white ball captaincy was the best thing that happened to him as well as for Sri Lanka cricket.

On the recent Test tour to England, signs of improvement in his batting began to unfold. His knock of 39 off 37 balls when Sri Lanka were chasing 219 for victory at the Oval was the beginning of his comeback. He had worked assiduously on his batting with the team’s Batting Coach Thilina Kandamby and the hired batting consultant for the tour former England cricketer Ian Bell.

“Kusal was not amongst the runs for some time in England. He worked hard on his technique with our Batting Coach Thilina Kandamby and Ian Bell,” explained Head Coach Sanath Jayasuriya. 

“Kandamby took full responsibility because when batsmen fail to score runs the blame comes on the batting coach. With the changes he underwent we saw a big difference in Kusal in Test cricket and in the white ball games. He is playing like a mature cricketer, we have seen his talent from his younger days. He was not amongst the runs at times, it can happen to any player. Now I see him wanting to finish a match.”

In the recently concluded white ball series against the West Indies and New Zealand, Mendis’ batting somewhat turned the corner. He played a crucial role in Sri Lanka’s historic first-ever T20I series win against the West Indies. In the decisive third match Mendis scored an unbeaten 68 off 50 balls leading Sri Lanka to a nine-wicket victory chasing a target of 163. 

The ODI series against New Zealand saw Mendis reach the zenith of his batting powers in white ball cricket with two different types of innings that saw Sri Lanka clinch the series 2-0 after a lapse of 12 years.

He played a terrific innings of 143 off 128 balls in the first ODI breaking Jayasuriya’s record for the highest score by a Sri Lankan batter against New Zealand in ODIs and shared a record breaking 206 runs second wicket stand with Avishka Fernando who also made a hundred. It helped Sri Lanka achieve their second highest total against New Zealand of 324-5 before rain curtailed the innings. The victory marked a significant performance for Mendis as it was his first ODI hundred at home since 2020.

He followed it up with a patient knock of 74* off 102 balls in the second match, an innings of great maturity to guide his team to victory by three wickets against all odds. Sri Lanka were down in the dumps at 93-5 chasing 210 when Mendis batting with the late order turned the game on its head. He won the Player of the Match award in both matches and also pocketed the Player of the Series award as well to complete a memorable series.

“Batting under pressure in situations with the lower middle order is not easy. It is very rare that you see that happen,” said Jayasuriya in praise of Mendis. “I don’t think in the 300 matches that I have played I had at any time finished a match batting with the lower middle order. To play an innings like that you need to have a lot of maturity and you should take a big responsibility. As a coach I like a player who takes responsibility. I am happy with the way Kusal is playing. We have brought him to this level by clearing his head and giving him the confidence from the Head Coach to the entire support staff. We have put in a lot of effort to bring him to this level.”

Mendis in fact is Sri Lanka’s leading run-getter for the calendar in both formats of the white ball game – 742 runs (avg. 53 and strike rate 90.59) in ODIs and 572 runs (avg. 30.10 and strike rate 128.82) in T20Is. 

Mendis’ ability to adapt during various phases of the innings and demonstrating his consistency and ability to perform under pressure highlights his role as a backbone for the team.

South Africa offers him a new challenge to convert his new found batting maturity to the highest form of the game.