Ajantha Mendis of Sri Lanka has caught world cricket unaware. His freakish bowling style has come under limelight.. Sri Lanka is known to produce unorthodox cricketer. Mendis is difficult play because he his difficult to read of the pitch and his hand and impossible to read of the seam.
This is because of several factors. He has 6 bowls in his variety so if you are going to read his off his hand it is going to be really confusing and you'll end up misreading him very often. On the other hand if you read him off the tracking you are inviting trouble as he bowls at quicker pace and flatter trajectory and also he gets a noticeable amount of top spin on the ball. Of the seam, you can never read him off the seam as he bowls cross-seamed.
Now, is he that hard to play? I don't think so. There are a few glitches if I may say so. First, he doesn't spin the bowl very much. Second, because of this he maintains stump to stump line. Third, He gives substantial pace to the bowl. I think there won't be any problem if you play vertical bat shots instead of horizontal ones. Scoring in the V-area is the key. On other occasions if he strays in line the pace on his ball can be used for an easy boundary behind square, either side.
That my take on the new bowling sensation who has been compared to John Gleeson. He is a very good find for cricket. I wish him good luck.
