‘Aiming to score 10,000 runs in Tests and ODIs’ – Kusal Mendis

Mendis also became the first Sri Lankan batsman to hit six Test hundreds before turning 24, three of which came in 2018. He finished the year with 1023 runs and said he wants to set small targets for himself on his way to 10,000 runs.

“I’m trying to score 10,000 runs in Tests and in one-dayers. But I can’t do that in one shot,” the 23-year-old, who has accumulated 2464 Test runs and 1404 ODI runs since his debut in 2015, told ESPNcricinfo.

“I’ve got to set myself little targets along the way. I’ve got to play for Sri Lanka for eight or nine more years, at least. I’m hoping to get to 1000 runs every year, so I can get there quickly.”

While he made his Test debut against the Windies at home in October 2015, it took him nearly nine months to get his first Test ton, but the circumstances in which it was scored put Mendis on a pedestal from where he was touted as the next big thing for his team.

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Trailing by 86 runs in the second innings of the first Test against Australia in Pallekele, Sri Lanka found themselves at 86/4 in the second (effectively 0/4) with the likes of Angelo Mathews and Dimuth Karunaratne back in the hut.

It was then that Mendis scored a magnificent counter-attacking 176 and carried Sri Lanka to 353, setting up a 107-run victory.

Mendis revealed he didn’t really feel like a part of Sri Lanka’s senior men’s team until that knock. “That didn’t come until after I hit 176 against Australia. They were the No. 1 team at the time, and if I could make a century against them, I felt as if I had a big future,” he said.

“To make that kind of score at that age against that kind of team – it gave me a lot of confidence. A lot of things changed for me after that innings. I felt as if I could build big innings.

Talking about his mindset before he went in to bat, Mendis said, “We were out cheaply in the first innings, so when I went in to bat in the second, I didn’t have any big expectations that I would score a hundred or anything.

“I batted quite aggressively back then – more so than now – and I middled pretty much everything that I tried. The pull shots I tried off the fast bowlers came off the bat really nicely.

If you can take criticism and not let it affect you, then you can stay on social media. I wasn’t able to do that, so I got out

“The sweeps went to the right place. I felt like I was making good decisions every ball, because everything was leading to good results.”

But while the knock was truly magnificent, consistency eluded Mendis who finished 2016 and 2017 averaging 34.64 and 33.45. This invited criticism from some corners.

“People were suggesting I wasn’t playing for the team, and I was hurt because I would never do that,” Mendis said.

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“When people say things like that, they’ve also got to take into account: how old is the person we’re criticising? What has he done for the team in the past? Has he actually done anything worth throwing mud at him for?

“We don’t think about that enough. So my advice to players coming up from U-19 level would be: if you can take that kind of unfair criticism and not let it affect you, then you can stay on social media. But because I wasn’t able to do that, I got out.”