Sri Lanka have been talking a while now about getting Kamindu Mendis to bat at prime position of number three. With the series lost, they wanted to make the move at The Oval, in the third Test match, but they have postponed it for two weeks and the indications are that it will happen during the home series against the Kiwis.
When that happens in Galle later this month, it certainly will be a step in the right direction.
The tour of England has shown us that Kamindu at seven is batting too deep and often he is left to bat with the tail. The former Under-19 captain has done well making a hundred in the first Test at Old Trafford, 74 at Lord’s and another unbeaten half-century at The Oval.
In the second Test, he missed out on getting his name in the Lord’s Honours Board as he ran out of partners. Then in the second innings he had to bat as low as number eight the moment Sri Lanka pushed the nightwatchman in.
At The Oval, again he would have been left with the tail if Dhananjaya de Silva had not hung around with him to post a half-century. The Richmond duo had added an unbroken 118 runs for the sixth wicket when bad light brought an early end to day’s play.
Kamindu has been the best batter on tour so far. Ideally, he should have moved up to number five at Lord’s, but the selectors didn’t want to upset the settled batting unit. Fair enough.
Then they almost pushed him to number three for the final Test before captain Dhananjaya de Silva issued a caution saying that in seaming conditions he didn’t want to sacrifice the man who has made all those runs at number seven.
Seaming conditions, Duke’s ball, formidable attack, that indeed was a tough ask.
There’s no harm in throwing someone to the deep end. Especially, someone of Kamindu’s technique, temperament, skill and smartness. But on the other hand, Dhananjaya is right in being cautious as his team had faced a few batting collapses on this tour and Kamindu had held his own lower down the order.
It was an impressive start for his career no doubt. In ten innings, Kamindu has scored three hundreds and four half-centuries and he is in line to break Roy Dias’ long standing record for being the fastest Sri Lankan to score 1000 Test runs. Roy did it in 23 innings and at this rate, Kamindu will need a lot less than that.
“It’s been a tremendous show by Kamindu. It’s not easy to bat at number seven because you are under a lot of pressure. He has absorbed that pressure so well. The thing is he has never played in England before and we were very keen to give him that practice game in Worcester.
But he had to miss that too. We knew he had the skill but it is the character and the temperament that he has shown that has impressed the dressing room. He is a great find for Sri Lankan cricket,” Head Coach Sanath Jayasuriya said after day two of the Oval Test.
Over the years, Sri Lanka have chosen their number three carefully.
In the early days, it was the team’s technically most sound batsman Roy Dias. While Roy was still around, he was pushed back to number four and the tough minded Asanka Gurusinha was allowed to settle in. That’s where he batted for a decade or so until his premature retirement in 1997.
Then, Marvan Atapattu another perfectionist when it comes to technique was given a go at three. When he had to move up the order as the opening partner to Sanath Jayasuriya, the slot fell vacant again and several players were tried there with little success.
Eventually, Dav Whatmore gambled with the little known Kumar Sangakkara early in his career and it proved to be a masterstroke. Unlike the other number threes, Sanga wasn’t the most technically sound or skillful. But it was his strong mindset that won him the nod over the others and he went on to do a terrific job.
For the first six years of his career, he had to not only bat at three but keep wickets as well, quite demanding, especially for someone who was finding his feet in international cricket. But to his credit, Sanga did both jobs well.
When Ashantha de Mel took over as Chairman of Selectors he was convinced that there was scope for Sanga to reach new scales as a batter and the keeping gloves were taken off him. It was then that he started hitting a purple patch.
In an era where he was playing alongside the likes of Ricky Ponting, Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar and Jacques Kallis he went on to claim the number one rank for batters and then became the nation’s highest run scorer. If there is anyone who can match his feats, we wouldn’t be wrong if we single out Kamindu.
