Over the years, Sri Lanka Cricket has become notorious in ruining young promising players Career. Chamara Kapugedera, Lahiru Thirimane, Upul Tharanga and Dinesh Chandimal were the classic example, with whom team management tried every possible experiment regarding their batting position, and eventually destroyed their confidence to the extent, that it took them many years to come out of this.
Now, team management is doing the same experiment with Kusal Mendis. At the age of 23, not only in Sri Lanka, but many in world Cricket also believes that he is a future great. A player, who can carry the legacy of Aravinda De Silva, Mahela Jayawardene and Kumar Sangakkara.
But, as soon he failed in some matches here and there, instead of backing him, the team management started to play with his game!
The most obvious thing Sri Lanka management does in this kind of Scenarios when a young player gets out of form, is to change his batting order frequently : almost in every single match.
“Kusal Mendis is our long term number 3 batsman” Sri Lanka high profile Manager-cum-selector-cum-adminstrator said during the India series.
Though, immediately after that, they started to play with his batting position. During the India series itself, they ‘rested’ Mendis, brought Dilshan Munaveera and sloted him number 3 position to bat.
After the experiment failed miserably, they brought Lahiru Thirimane for the first test against Pakistan and played him at number three, while Mendis came at number four. When Thirimane got injured, they brought Sadeera Samarwikrama and made debutant to play at number three, while Mendis once again pushed back.
Yesterday, in the first match of ODI series, Most Surprisingly, Dinesh Chandimal came to bat at Mendis ‘So called customary batting position according to Asanka Gurusinha’ and the poor guy had to bat at number five this time!
If a player is out of form, most logical way is to give him the break for some time. But, Sri Lanka management always prefers to push these players up and down in the batting order. As a result, the player gets completely confused about his role and batting position in the team.
Sri Lanka is doing exactly the same experiment with Kusal Mendis Now!
