The Mendis factor: Sri Lanka’s new spin-king looks the heir to Murali’s cricket throne

The 23-year-old army recruit was brought to the West Indies as a filler for Muttiah Muralitharan. One mesmerising spell of 10 overs in his ODI debut was enough to persuade Sportingo’s Mark Rivlin that Ajantha Mendis is going to be a massive success. Having been married for nearly 20 years, and therefore not having much to excite me in the evenings, I put my feet up with a cool beer and settled down to the last 30 overs of the West Indies chasing 236 in the first ODI against Sri Lanka. And my testosterone levels were revived at the sight of what could be the future of international spin bowling. When Ajantha Mendis was thrown the ball by Sri Lankan skipper Mahela Jayawardene I thought to myself, ’Ah, here’s the gofer the tourists have brought along to replace Muttiah Muralitharan’. My words were not just eaten, they were devoured by a truly mesmerising spell of spin bowling which was translated into fabulous figures of 3-39 in 10 overs. Any bowler in the w...