Former Selectors deserve credit for unearthing Kusal Mendis

The 21 year old batting sensational Kusal Mendis is the talking point of Sri Lankan cricket right now. After very impressive performances against Australia in the first two test matches of Warne – Murali trophy, the whole cricketing world has started to talk about him. Even Australian former and current cricketers, who don’t usually appreciate Sri Lankan cricketers for some reason, have appreciated very much about his batting talents. Some of the former players, journalists and others who are involved with cricket field have started to compare him with Sri Lankan cricket legends like Aravinda de Silva, Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene. Even though, it is too early to compare him with these cricketing legends who have been the greatest cricketers produced by Sri Lanka, they all have a good point.

In both tests against Australia in this tour, Kusal Mendis was the only stand out performer with the bat from both teams. Specially, the match wining knock he played in the first test match at Pallekele where he scored 176 runs after Sri Lanka were 2 down for just 6 runs with 80 odd runs behind Australia, can be considered as one of the best innings ever played by a Sri Lankan cricketer. During that test, all the other players from both teams struggled to score runs. Only Steve Smith could score a half century apart from Kusal Mendis magical innings. At 21, He showed no fear to face one of the best fast bowlers going around Mitchel Starc for the first time in his career and built the innings like a well matured player.

However, inclusion of Kusal Mendis to the national team for the first time raised eye brows of many as he was so young and immature as a cricketer to represent Sri Lanka. Lot of people questioned his selection because by the time he had played only 11 first class matches with a batting average of mere 30. Compared to him, there were lot of domestic players who had averages around 40s and 50s in domestic cricket and some of them were in tremendous form, but thanks to one person, player like Kusal Mendis could come to the national team at the right time. He was the former chief selector Kapila Wijegunawardene who gave Kusal Mendis the opportunity to make his debut against West Indies in last year at P. Sara Oval. Former chief selector was so confident that this guy got the capability to play at the big stage. His decision helped to unearth a unique talent for Sri Lanka and the rest has become history now. He has now played 8 test matches so far for Sri Lanka and scored 616 runs at an average of 41.06 and also represented Sri Lanka in 7 one day internationals where he scored 228 runs at an average of 32.57.

Without having lot of experience in domestic and international level, Kusal Mendis showed the world what he is made of. He represented Sri Lanka under 19 team which departed to United Arab Emirates to play the under 19 world cup in 2014 and captained the team as well. He was a run machine at school level representing Prince of Wales College, Moratuwa. However, in domestic cricket his records are not that great. I wonder any other selector at that stage would pick Kusal Mendis to the national team with those mere records. Most selectors look at player past records and pick them rather than selecting them on their potential. Therefore, some credit should be given to former chief selector Kapila Wijegunawardene for unearthing a batting sensational like Kusal Mendis.