Mendis: more than a nice little turner

The mavericks of Sri Lanka are putting a unique stamp on Twenty20 with their endless capacity for reinvention, writes John Stern in the Sunday Times. Sri Lankan cricket seems to encourage invention and innovation to a point where it is almost unconventional to be conventional.

Ajantha Mendis' stats are frightening: 34 Test wickets at 23; 64 one-day wickets at 13; 16 Twenty20 international wickets at seven and 155 first-class wickets at 16. Strike-rates and economy-rates are all more than acceptable. In the age of the batsman, these are throwback numbers, the sort of figures one would expect from the days of uncovered pitches.