Mendis has been decoded

Sri Lanka without Muttiah Muralitharan are like Queen without Freddie Mercury, Mike Selvey writes in the Guardian. Ajantha Mendis was supposed to take up the mantle but in three years he has gone from mystery bowler to steady but unthreatening.

Mendis will have been scrutinised microscopically. From it will have come the realisation that in a form of the game where there is no imperative to force the pace, there is nothing so mysterious about Mendis at all. " Get forward," is the mantra, "and play him as an off-spin bowler." Simple and, if the statistics are to be believed, effective, for since that debut series, 13 matches have thus far brought him 36 more wickets at 41 runs apiece. The batsmen have got his measure now.

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